Name: Rakuten CEO Explains Photoimmunotherapy
Uploaded: 2019-04-03
Duration: 13 min 58 s
Description: A cancer treatment that Mickey Mikitani invested his time with after his father passed away.

So we met years ago, when I think both Larry Ellis and [ UNKNOWN ] introduced me to you when your father was sick. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And obviously, I saw the caring you had for him, I saw the respect you had for him. And you did something in honor of your father to respect your father which was create a bio technology company with a remarkable new drug on cancer. That's not a normal response to a tragedy is to try to do something to help others. Explain to us a little bit. I mean you have to understand Miqetani is He created Rakutan, which is one of the great companies of Japan. It was in the Wall Street Journal that he was the largest shareholder of Lyft that just went public last week. He's creating a new, a whole new way of doing telephone networks that will be in Asia and hopefully global soon. He's a technology pioneer yet you got into biotechnology. Yeah, what a funny story, right? Well, so it was my kind of personal reason. My father was diagnosed as a very difficult pancreatic cancer and I'm kind of crazy entrepreneur And I initially thought there should be some new ongoing development of a new advanced treatment to basically cure the pancreatic cancer. So I contacted you, I went to UCSF. I went to Harvard. I went to The Colombia University, I went to Paris University, I literally did all these research in my capacity as much as I can. But I couldn't find any really good looking cure. But interestingly. One of my friend call me and he was also the friend of my father and he said hey Mickey I heard the very bad news about your father having a very difficult cancer. By the way my cousin is doing this new project. Trying to cure the cancer was light. And that's it. I was desperate, right? And then he initially so it's kind of this must be a joke, curing the cancer with light. But I was desperate so I said okay, I'm gonna have a meeting with him. And then, you know, I thought this is completely two totally different approach and you know, it may work ..>> So, what he's talking about is something called photo immunotherapy. I think the best way to show it is a quick video. Can we go to the video? I don't know where I'm supposed to point. Photo immunotherapy is a new precision anti- cancer treatment platform under development by Rakuten Medical. Consisting of tumor targeting antibody conjugates that can illuminated at the tumor site using non- thermal red light. [ MUSIC ] Treatment of patients with cancer is initiated with an intravenous infusion of the antibody conjugate. [ MUSIC ] It distributes systemically. And accumulates at the tumor, where it attaches to specific antigens present on the surface of tumor cells. After infusion of the conjugate, the patient undergoes photo- immunotherapy treatment by illuminating the tumor with non- thermal red light. transiently excite the antibody conjugate to elicit anti cancer activity. A laser is used as the light source superficial tumors are illuminated with frontal diffusers deep subcutaneous and large tumors are illuminated with cylindrical diffusers inserted into catheters place using image guidance. Total illumination lasts about five minutes for each treated region. Antibody conjugates bound to the antigen on the cancer cells are transiently excited upon non- thermal red light illumination to induce a bio- physical process that compromises the membrane integrity of cancer cells. Leading to cancer cell death and tumor necrosis with minimal effects on surrounding normal tissue. Moreover, this mechanism of action may activate immune cells, such as antigen presenting cells and NK cells, and may stimulate tumor specific cytotoxic T cells. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] All right, so an idea, photoimmunotherapy. You go through clinical trials. It's now on phase three clinical trial in head and neck cancer. How's it going? I think it is going well. Well, of course, I think we're moving pretty fast I think. And internally we have a very strong confidence .>> So we heard before we were talking to one of the CEOs of, or the head of R & D of a pharmaceutical company and they said the current hit rate is 10 %. If this works you'll be 100 % one for one which is pretty wild if you think about it. When did you start, so what's the time frame from beginning till now? Beginning we started our, the phase one clinical study, three years ago, maybe Three years ago. Yeah .>> And so the idea is you put in this antibody you activate it with this light. Yeah. And then the tumor shrinks. You know what we in the cancer field dream of is something called the [ UNKNOWN ] Scoble effect. Yes. Which is where you can kill one lesion right. But the immune response to this legion that cures away the cells will cure away or attack other legions also and so that's the dream especially now with immunotherapy where we can make immune responses even greater that dreams becoming a reality in some cases but you've seen some benefits? We are in a clinical trial. [ LAUGH ] Got it. My [ UNKNOWN ] guys are Warn me? Yeah! You can say this, you cannot say this, but I think, just to summarize it, the mechanisms we are conducting are very different from even other immunotherapy I think we have seen some cases which were very difficult to see in traditional approach. I possibly invested over $ 200 million into this company, believing this will be one of the breakthrough for cancer therapy, including what you just mentioned. That's fantastic. And so, obviously, the world hopes this works. We need new ways to treat cancer. But your background is very different. You own soccer team, you're investing in tennis you obviously have [ UNKNOWN ] doing so many things doesn't overwhelm you? Well, I'm crazy enterprenuer and I love business. But I think this project is very different from other projects, right? Of course, our major network operator business is going to be I think the game- changer for Fortune project business. But this is far more important than anything else. This is of course. Incorporation, but at the same time, this is kind of a different sort of project for myself. To kind of revenge to the cancer, which took the life away from my father. I mean, and it's certainly a beautiful story. I was called by a number of people in Silicon Valley who invested, and what do you think about this? I go, I don't know, it's Mikitani, it's a technology company. And then we had dinner, and it was interesting. A bunch of scientists around the table, and you're the one who showed me the data. I saw your passion, I saw your excitement around the data and the science, and it certainly was beautiful to watch. How'd you teach yourself about antibodies, about immune cells, about cancer? How did you learn all this? Well I take notes. I Google all these- [ LAUGH ] New words, which is very very strange to ordinary people. And also, just to be honest to my colleagues, the scientists and doctors And tell them I don't understand please teach me. Right. But I have been doing this for five years. At this moment I'm reasonably knowledgeable and sometimes I have a fresh eye. Whereby the traditional people in this industry are kind of trapped by the conventional wisdom. I think I have kind of an amateur fresh eye to find the possibility. And I was probably, you know, ignorant enough to bid on this one, you know? And I think, in my personal opinion, the future looks very good. What would your father say if he knew you were doing this now? Well, I hope he will be proud of it. And I hope my sincere hope this will work and for my father, but we're hoping we will be able to save millions of people. That's beautiful. The company is based in San Diego. Yes. And the technology, where did it come from? Where did you find this? Yeah, so everything is connected. I was listening to the speech of Steve Jobs, who was your patient, right? He said everything is connected. And this was originally introduced from my friend. Who is also the sponsor of my football team? or soccer team is not [ CROSSTALK ] Yeah. So and he was very close to my father too and researcher is a Japanese researcher. At National Institute of Health or NCI. In Bethesda. Yes. Great, His name is Dr. Hisatato Kobayashi. He's also from Kobe from where I grew up. So he's my personal friend, and but nobody really believed. So this company was running out of money The company who, he licenced that to us, running out of money. They were so desperate, and I didn't know whether it's gonna work or not, but I first gave them that $ 20 million to them to keep doing research. And now, yeah, we progressed so much, so. I think, you know, definitely I am not the farmer specialist. But I think I have the eye to analyze the theory of how it works, and hopefully it is going to work. As an outsider looking at this industry, biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry, what do you observe? I mean from our side it looks rather inefficient. What does it look like to you? Of course this clinical trial and approval process is so long. And I understand the sensitivity of the issues, but at the same time now there are so many innovations being approach, taking place and being develop and it is Too expensive to go through this process. So I think it is time for entire world to reconsider the traditional approach is the right way to do it. Or do we want it to be a little bit, of course we need to be concerned about safetyness. But other than that small comparison of a data that is going to be worth pursuing or not. That's my candidate opinion. That's interesting and have you seen patients yourself benefit? Did you actually meet the patients? Yes, in Japan. You did? Yup. And what was that like Of course, there was crying. In Japan, because of the initial inventor of the technology is Japanese, he's very famous. They have been waiting To get treated for a long, long time. So these are locally advanced head neck cancers where there is nothing else to treat them with a mass on their head or their neck. Yeah, and I think the entire family were, very, very happy. Well, I think the world is happy and I did know your father is smiling down for what you've done. You have something to honor him which benefits humanity. And it's a remarkable thing you did and hopefully, this drug will benefits patients with cancer. So I and everybody, thank you for what you're doing. And admire you and what you are. Thank you very much. So thank you. Thank you. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Rakuten CEO Explains Photoimmunotherapy

Health

A cancer treatment that Mickey Mikitani invested his time with after his father passed away. 