Monday, August 14, 2006

Drug development deal spurs growth at Makoto

By Dyke Hendrickson

Officials of Cambridge-based Makoto Life Sciences Inc. will hire 15 to 20 employees in the coming months following a collaboration with Taiho Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. of Tokyo, the largest oncology drug maker in Japan.

The startup signed a $20 million research pact with Taiho in late July.

"We're going to be hiring now, though I can't say how long it will take," said Terence Russell, chief executive of Makoto. "Sometimes it's hard to get good people."

Russell said the collaboration is the result of a consulting contract he and co-founder Jim Fordyce had with the Japanese company.

Makoto, incorporated a year ago, will focus on small-molecule target identification for Taiho in areas including oncology, urology and allergic inflammation. "A growing trend is the desire of companies to really know how their compounds work on the molecular level," said Russell.

Russell, a Boston native, earned undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees from Boston University, and completed post-doctoral study at Harvard University in 1999.

Russell said the Taiho collaboration is "the first stop" toward a long-term partnership between the two companies.