OUR TEAM

Akiko Mutai

President and CEO

Focus

Representative Director, General Management

Biography

Akiko joined Mitsui & Co. in 2000. In 2002 she started working in the current ICT Business Division, engaged in strategic planning and sales. Her responsibilities included supporting the development of foreign markets for Japanese mobile communication operators, facilitating the overseas expansion of mobile content services, and investing in internet-related ventures. Starting from 2020, she served as the General Manager of the Business Management Dept., supporting the management of affiliated companies within the ICT Business Division. Additionally, from 2020 to 2023, she held a position as a non-executive director at Mitsui Bussan Secure Direction.
She has been in her current position since May 2023.

Interests

Travelling, Playing baseball with her children

Tatsuya Fukunaga

Vice President and COO

Focus

Management, Planning and execution of business strategy

Biography

After joining Mitsui & Co., LTD., he worked in electronics-related trading business. After returning from his assignment in Shanghai, China, he worked in several investment projects mainly in Asia. In 2015, he was seconded to Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd., where he was engaged in energy-related Cloud services and bioinformatics-related businesses. In 2019, he served as President and COO of iMedical Inc., where he worked to expand teleradiology service.
He assumes his current position in May 2024.

Interests

Fishing, Scuba diving, R&B

Hiroki Makiguchi

Chief Technology Officer

Focus

Project Management (Sales & Development) in Bioinformatics, Chemoinformatics, Data Science, System Development, Web Service Development, and Bioinformatics

Biography

Hiroki has 20 years of extensive experience in the Dry area of the bioscience industry.
After joining Mitsui Knowledge Industry in 2002, he has supported a wide range of research in terms of bioinformatics with many laboratories from the national universities, independent research and development corporations, pharmaceutical companies, and the R&D departments of food, chemical, and equipment manufacturers throughout Japan. He has co-authored and published widely on the methods developed and systems implemented as a result of these research efforts.
From 2017, he oversaw and expanded the business performance of the company's bioscience division, including cancer genome clinical sequencing and mass spectrometer software development. Later, while working on the development of new businesses, he explored the possibility of an AI drug discovery business with a focus on computational drug discovery, and conducted PoC studies in collaboration with Mitsui & Co. This lead to the establishment of Xeureka.
Seconded to Xeureka from December 2021.

Interests

Appreciation of art, music, movies, videos, and other creative works, reading, walking

Ryushi Seo

General Manager
Science & Technology Div.

Focus

Medicinal Chemistry, Chemoinformatics, Data Science, Product Management

Biography

Ryushi worked for Astellas Pharma for 23 years as a medicinal chemist and was involved in numerous drug discovery projects in various disease areas, contributing to the discovery of 5 development compounds and 9 development candidate compounds. Leading the digital transformation of small molecule drug discovery, he developed multiple predictive models using machine learning, automated model updating, molecular generation, and various data analysis functions. He also designed and implemented a user-centric UI/UX, and constructed an AI drug discovery platform that integrated all of these functions.
He possesses extensive practical experience in the pharmaceutical industry, with expertise not only in medicinal chemistry but also in combinatorial chemistry, cheminformatics, and AI. Additionally, he has advanced skills in the open-source software KNIME.
He joined Xeureka in October 2023.

Interests

Playing soccer, watching TV dramas, stock investment, KNIME

Naoki Shiraishi

General Manager
Tokyo-1 Division

Focus

Business Operations, Project Management

Biography

Worked as a system engineer/professional manager at Fujitsu Ltd. for 21 years. Naoki engaged in the bioinformatics field as a system construction and operations project manager for organizations and research institutes affiliated with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. After that, he was involved in project management for business systems construction in the Middle East, environmental monitoring, and monitoring system construction and operation, He joined Xeureka in August 2023 as Tokyo-1 Senior Technical Manager. Current position from April 2024.
My purpose: Create new value and contribute to society by enjoying and adapting to diverse changes.

Interests

Soccer, Walking, Watching TV dramas/animations, Dragon Quest Walk, Gundam (UC)

Takayuki Kishi

General Manager
Business Development & Partnership Div.

Focus

Management, Business Development

Biography

Takayuki Joined Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd., and he was engaged in legal affairs at HQ and managed a joint venture and ship operations at its affiliate in Singapore.
He later transitioned to Dream Incubator Inc. (DI), where he conducted management consulting to Japanese listed companies and investments to startups.
At SmartNews, Inc., he gained diverse experience in the tech industry, including strategy planning, budgeting, monitoring of management indicators, digital ads in the U.S., M&A and partnering.
In 2023, he joined Mitsui & Co, Ltd., taking charge of the AI Drug Discovery business.
He has held his current position since May 2024.

Interests

Travel, Sauna

Douglas Cary Ph.D.

Drug Discovery Project Manager
Business Development & Partnership Div.

Focus

Drug Discovery, CRO Management, Business Development

Biography

Doug has over 20 years of experience in medicinal chemistry R&D across the early discovery, optimization, preclinical, and clinical stages with various drug modalities. He has held positions of increasing responsibility in pharma (Takeda Pharmaceuticals, 12 years), biotech (Pharmacyclics, Sunesis, PeptiDream), government (LLNL), and non-profit (DNDi/GARDP) organizations. He has been involved in programs leading to the discovery of more than 10 clinical candidates, 5 development compounds, and a commercialized sensor for treating diabetes. He is particularly interested in the validation of new drug targets for treating unmet medical needs. He received his B.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, and conducted postdoctoral studies at the University of Oxford.
He joined Xeureka in June 2022.

Interests

Family, gardening, cooking, jogging, yoga, global health.

Kazuya Ujihara Ph.D.

Product Engineering Manager
Science & Technology Div.　

Focus

Application Development for Computer Aided Drug Discovery, Project Managment

Biography

After graduating from the Graduate School of Science at Hokkaido University (Natural Products Chemistry and Total Synthesis), he worked at Sumitomo Chemical and Preferred Networks, where he was involved in compound design, synthetic route discovery, and computer application development and programming in the fields of insecticides for household use, agrochemicals, and veterinary medicines. At Sumitomo Chemical, he led the invention of two commercialized compounds, which are now widely available in stores. At Preferred Networks, he was involved in the development of an AI-based drug discovery library, as well as the discovery of a COVID-19 Mpro inhibitor and a novel herbicide lead compound.
He received his PhD in Agrochemistry from the Graduate School of Agricultural Science, the University of Tokyo, and a research fellowship in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University (Justin Du Bois Lab). He received the Pesticide Science Award from the Pesticide Science Society of Japan, the Chemical Technology Award from the Chemical Society of Japan, Microsoft MVP, and Top 100 Vector download ranking, among others.
He is also involved in OSS activities and is committed to Chemistry Development Kit and RDKit.
He joined Xeureka in September 2022.

Interests

Travel , play piano and guitar, standup comedy

Yuichi Kokabu Ph.D.

Science & Technology Div.

Focus

Computational Chemistry, Biophysics, in silico Drug Discovery

Biography

Yuichi obtained his Doctorate in Science from Yokohama City University, after which he worked a postdoctoral fellow conducting research on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.
He joined Mitsui Information in 2015. Immediately after joining the company, he provided consulting services related to antibody drug discovery, primarily from the perspective of MD simulation. After that, he worked in the field of structural bioinformatics and chemoinformatics before being transferred to Xeureka in April 2022.

Interests

Gardening (mainly insectivorous plants), cycling, forest walks

Kenichi Tanaka Ph.D.

Tech Lead
Science & Technology Div.

Focus

Cheminformatics, Bioinformatics, Information Science, Machine Learning, Software Development

Biography

Kenichi has 15 years of experience as an informatics specialist in various areas of chemistry (drug discovery, materials development, chemical plants, etc.).
He received his Ph.D. in Engineering from Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST). Since 2010 he has worked as a postdoctoral fellow at RIKEN, the Noguchi Institute, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), the iPS Cell Research Institute, Kyoto University, and the University of Tokyo. From 2017 he worked as an Assistant Professor in the Funatsu Laboratory at the University of Tokyo. He has collaborated with about 30 chemical companies in Japan, providing consulting services on machine learning and data science.
He joined Xeureka in September 2022.

Interests

Competitive programming, basketball, cycling, watching movies

Takeru Kameda Ph.D.

Science Lead
Science & Technology Div.

Focus

Computational Sciences (Physics / Chemistry / Biology), Biophysics, (Chem / Structural-) Informatics, Data Science

Biography

Takeru received Ph.D. from Hiroshima University in 2021, and after several years of In Silico drug discovery at Sumitomo Pharma, he joined Xeureka.
While conducting In Silico studies based on biomolecular dynamics and free energy calculations using numerical calculations, he is challenging the development of innovative in silico drug discovery technologies by integrating data-driven sciences.
He has been in his current position since April 2023.

Interests

Baseball, Video Games

Seiken Tokura Ph.D.

Product Engineering Manager
Science & Technology Div.

Focus

Computational Chemistry, Quantum Chemistry, in silico Drug Discovery, Product Management

Biography

Seiken received his Ph.D. from University of Tokyo in 2007 for his work on density functional theory of quantum chemical calculations. He was engaged in in silico drug discovery research at Taisho Pharmaceutical for 15 years, where he was in charge of Ligand-based Drug Design (LBDD), Structure-based Drug Design (SBDD), chemoinformatics and drug discovery research by quantum chemical calculation. He was in charge of software development at a system development company. Implemented a long-range correction method for density functional theory in the quantum chemistry program (GAMESS).
He has been in his current position since October 2023.

Interests

Reading, Cycling, Stock Trading

Kengo Tsuda

Science & Technology Div.

Biography

After graduating from university, he joined RIKEN for more than 10 years. He engaged in research in the field of structural biology to understand biological events from the viewpoint of three-dimensional structure of biomolecules. He contributed to the accomplishment of projects by solving the three-dimensional structures of proteins and protein-nucleic acid complexes using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). He also worked on the analysis of molecular dynamics using computational chemistry methods.
After that, he joined MITSUI KNOWLEDGE INDUSTRY (MKI) in 2019. He was in charge of antibody drug discovery supporting services using bioinformatics and in-house R&D work, and then transferred to Xeureka Inc. in April 2024.

Interests

Music appreciation and production, Futsal