Exhibit 99.1
For Immediate Release
Company name: DAIICHI SANKYO COMPANY, LIMITED
Representative: Takashi Shoda, President and Representative Director
(Code no.: 4568, First Section, Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya Stock Exchanges)
Please address inquiries to Toshio Takahashi, Corporate Officer in Charge,
Corporate Communications Department
Telephone: +81-3-6225-1126
Third Sankyo Takamine Memorial Award Granted
Tokyo, December 6, 2005 – The Sankyo Foundation of Life Science announced today that the Third Sankyo Takamine Memorial Award for fiscal 2005 is to be awarded to Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi of the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University. The award ceremony is to be held on Monday, December 12 at the Hotel Okura.
The Tokyo-based Sankyo Foundation of Life Science (Chairman: Yasuhiro Hitosugi) was established in November 1983 by Sankyo Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; hereafter, Sankyo) which is a wholly owned subsidiary of DAIICHI SANKYO COMPANY, LIMITED. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the foundation’s establishment, the Sankyo Takamine Memorial Award was created to perpetuate the memory of the research work carried out by Dr. Jokichi Takamine, Sankyo’s first president (March 1913-July 1922).
Since its establishment, the foundation has worked in a support capacity by, for example, providing two-year research grants for innovative research in the life sciences, facilitating exchange programs (inviting foreign academics, arranging for Japanese researchers to work overseas, and supporting international symposia), and establishing two-year Sankyo fellowships.
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Award-winning research theme:
“Research on the control of immune response with regulatory T cells”
Dr. Sakaguchi discovered endogenous regulatory T cells physiologically existing within the normal human and animal body, and he clarified their generation, their molecular mechanism and function in immune diseases, and in particular, their role in autoimmune diseases. Moreover, he established a basis for applying regulatory T cells in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, their induction in tumor immunity, and their application in organ transplantation. His research made possible the control of pathological and physiological immune responses, which will lead to the development of new methods of prevention and treatment for human immune diseases. Dr. Sakaguchi’s research has received high international appraisal. In the U.S., the Cancer Research Institute awarded him its 2004 William B. Coley Award for his achievements, andScience magazine recently featured a special article introducing his research.
Profile of Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi
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January 1951 | | Born in Nagoya city |
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March 1976 | | Graduated from Kyoto University, Faculty of Medicine |
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October 1977 | | Aichi Cancer Center Hospital and Research Institute, Experimental Pathology Department, research student |
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April 1980 | | Kyoto University, Faculty of Medicine, Institute for Immunology; and Department of Transfusion Medicine, Kyoto University Hospital |
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September 1983 | | Earned Doctor’s Degree from Kyoto University, Faculty of Medicine |
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September 1983 | | Johns Hopkins University, visiting researcher |
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July 1987 | | Stanford University, visiting researcher (Lucille P. Markey Scholar) |
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July 1989 | | Scripps Research Institute, Department of Immunology, assistant professor |
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March 1992 | | Researcher for the Research Development Corporation of Japan, “Sakigake Research 21.” |
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April 1995 | | Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, head of the Department of Immunology and Pathology |
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February 1999 | | Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, Professor of the Department of Experimental Pathology |
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| Awards Received | | |
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| July 1986 | | Lucile P. Markey Award for Biomedical Science |
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| November 2003 | | Academic Award of the Mochida Memorial Foundation for Medical and Pharmaceutical Research |
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| June 2004 | | Cancer Research Institute’s William B. Coley |
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| | | Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology |
Notes:
Website for the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University:
http://www.frontier.kyoto-u.ac.jp/
Website for Sankyo Foundation of Life Science:
http://www.sankyo-fdn.or.jp/
