Establishment of AI-driven Drug Discovery Company

Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (“Mitsui”, Head Office: Tokyo, President and CEO: Kenichi Hori) has established a new company, Xeureka Inc. (“Xeureka”), to engage in early drug discovery research using a state of the art computer technology, including AI and simulations.

The pharmaceuticals industry has been affected by a number of industrial issues, including high R&D costs exceeding ¥100 billion, a low success rate of below 1%, and long development lead times of 10-20 years per a new drug discovery. Xeureka aims to achieve dramatic efficiency improvements and raise the success rate by making extensive use of computer technology in all aspects of drug development, thereby contributing to the timely provision of high-quality, economically priced drugs to people affected by diseases, especially cancer. Xeureka will build its business in collaboration with Mitsui Knowledge Industry (Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Kengo Asano), a wholly owned Mitsui subsidiary that has been working in the field of bioinformatics for half a century.

Mitsui & Co. has positioned the healthcare and nutrition area as one of strategic focus domains under its Medium-term Management Plan 2023 and is engaged in company-wide efforts to build a health business group under the name “Wellness All Mitsui” (WAM). The establishment of Xeureka is one of Mitsui’s specific initiatives to provide pharmaceutical companies with DX solutions as a framework for proving DX solutions by leveraging medical business relation.

Mitsui is committed to the evolution of high added-value business models through the combination of its wide-ranging business asset platforms, while continuing to contribute to sustainable social development through business activities by evolving its own business models in step with social changes.

Profile of the New Company