Our lab is researching forms of open innovation in the biotechnology field, where confidentiality is relatively high and corporate collaboration is difficult to advance. For example, as in the case of order-made clothing, where measurements are taken and tailored according to the customer’s height and body shape, the medical field is entering an era in which medicines are selected according to the genetic background and constitution of the patient.
If a patient was diagnosed with stomach or lung cancer, the usual method was to prescribe a drug for that cancer. Still, the effect was unpredictable, and there were problems with side effects. In contrast, order-made medicine is an innovative treatment method that accurately diagnoses each patient’s disease’s causative genes and molecules and prescribes a specific medicine accordingly (Figure. 1).
Figure 1: Differences between conventional medicine (left) and Order-made medicine (right)