Kyowa Kirin Announces Collaboration with World Anti-Doping Agency to Prevent Misuse and Abuse of Medicines for Doping in Sports

Montreal, Canada and Tokyo, Japan, September 24, 2019 --- The World Anti-Doping Agency (President: Craig Reedie, “WADA”) and Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd. (TSE:4151, President and CEO: Masashi Miyamoto, “Kyowa Kirin”) today announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed to partner on the prevention of misuse and abuse of medicines for doping in sports.

Doping in sports relies primarily on the misuse and abuse of commercially available medicines, as well as compounds in development that are not as well-known or easily detected. Under the MOU with WADA, Kyowa Kirin will support WADA in its fight against doping in sports by reviewing any of its compounds in development with the potential for sports-related abuse and sharing relevant information to WADA for preventing misuse and abuse of medicines for doping in sports.

“Misuse and abuse of medicine for doping in sports not only dangers athletes’ health and the fairness of competition but also damages the medical development sustainability in pharmaceutical industry,“ said Satoshi Nakanishi, Ph.D., Executive Officer, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility Management Department, Kyowa Kirin, “This collaboration with WADA is one of our actions to solve social health-related issues and enhance people’s quality of life to contribute to the health and well-being of people around the world, which is also one of our missions as a pharmaceutical company.”

Following the signing, Sir Craig said: “It is important for WADA to continue to partner with leading pharmaceutical and healthcare research organizations around the world such as Kyowa Kirin for the benefit of both communities. We have a long tradition of collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry and this partnership will help WADA develop new strategies to identify substances that could be subject to misuse and abuse.”

“Doping in sport relies heavily on the misuse of commercially available substances developed for proper therapeutic use as well as newly discovered compounds. Learning about those new compounds while they are still in development gives us a head-start as we devise our own strategies, whether that is in the area of education, detection or investigation. I would like to thank Dr. Miyamoto and his team at Kyowa Kirin for their commitment to supporting WADA as we target those who would attempt to abuse legitimate medicines for doping purposes. The Agency looks forward to a long and fruitful collaboration.”

Kyowa Kirin’s activities are aligned with the recent guidance published by WADA and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies increase their role in the fight against sport-related doping. The guidance, titled Points to Consider: Identification of Compounds with Potential for Doping Abuse and Sharing of Information with WADA, includes best practices on establishing a voluntary process for determining the potential doping risk of compounds in their development pipelines before they are commercially available.

The Kyowa Kirin Group companies strive to contribute to the health and well-being of people around the world by creating new value through the pursuit of advances in life sciences and technologies.