Naoki Sakurai, Ph.D.

President and Chief Executive Officer

Naoki Sakurai, Ph.D. has served as President & CEO of Tanabe Research Laboratories (TRL) since June 2011. Dr. Sakurai has held numerous positions with increasing responsibilities in multiple pharmaceutical backgrounds after he joined Tanabe Seiyaku Co. Ltd. in 1985. He previously served as Director at Strategic Research Planning Division (2010-2011) and Advanced Medical Research Laboratory (2007-2010) in Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma where he was responsible for diverse efforts including biologics, biomarkers, target discovery, in-licensing, open-innovation alliance with academia, and so on. From 2002 to 2007, Dr. Sakurai served as TRL’s Global Project Director/Director of Biology guiding and leading multifunctional groups responsible for in vitro and in vivo pharmacology in inflammatory and metabolic disorders. Dr. Sakurai served as the Senior Research Scientist of the Discovery Research Laboratory at Tanabe Seiyaku from 1998 to 2002. In this capacity he directed assay development and HTS functions to support various cross-functional projects. Dr. Sakurai headed the Bone Biology Group and efforts aimed at developing drugs for skeletal disorders simultaneously during this time. Earlier in his career, from 1985 to 1996, Dr. Sakurai's research efforts were focused on microbiological approaches for exploitation of novel bioprobes. Dr. Sakurai received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Kyoto University and during 1997-1998 worked with Signal Pharmaceuticals (now Celgene) as a Research Scientist



Roland Newman, Ph.D.

Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer

Roland Newman Ph.D. joined Tanabe Research Laboratories USA as Chief Scientific Officer in the spring of 2010. Before joining TRL he was Principal at RANA Consulting, a biotechnology consulting company with special emphasis on Japanese-US pharmaceutical partnering. Prior to this was head of the Molecular Immunology Department at Idec Pharmaceuticals and then Senior Director of Business Development at Biogen-Idec. During his time at Idec he was co-inventor of Rituxan® and co-developed several other therapeutic antibodies for oncology and autoimmune diseases. Dr. Newman's scientific experience covers immunology, molecular biology and biochemical research in both academic and industrial environments and he has over 100 peer reviewed publications, several book chapters and 30 patents. Prior to his industrial experience Dr. Newman was Assistant Professor at the University of California San Diego and visiting scientist at the Salk Institute in San Diego. He obtained his Ph.D. in the UK at the University of Bath and did post-doctoral research at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund laboratories in London and the University Medical Clinic in Cologne Germany.



Kengo Isshiki

Vice President of Administration

Mr. Isshiki has served as Vice President of Administration for TRL since April, 2011. He has more than 15 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry since joining Tanabe Seiyaku in 1994, where he started his career as a Research Scientist in biochemical pharmacology. Prior to TRL, Mr. Isshiki contributed to multiple research projects as the Project Manager for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation since it was formed in 2007. He had been responsible for pharmacology in skeletal, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Mr. Isshiki earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Enzymology from Tohoku University.