From persistence to precision: how Daiichi Sankyo is evolving its R&D strategy in oncology

This article has been developed and funded by Daiichi Sankyo Europe.

With more than 125 years of drug research and development in Japan, Daiichi Sankyo was an early pioneer in antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), years before the field attracted major industry investment. Along the way, the company has experienced both landmark successes and instructive setbacks – lessons that are now shaping its approach to R&D.

In this interview, Yuki Abe, Head of R&D Division and Head of Research, sat down with us to reflect on how Daiichi Sankyo thinks about long-term innovation, why the company remained committed to ADCs when confidence across the sector wavered, and how it plans to leverage advances in discovery research, biomarker science, digital technologies and integrated R&D capabilities to expand the development of innovative medicines aimed at addressing unmet medical needs.

Q: Daiichi Sankyo has continually sought to emphasize its commitment to R&D. What does that mean in practice for your oncology-focused organization today?

A: For us, long-term commitment in R&D is less about persistence for its own sake and more about accepting the realities of scientific progress. Breakthrough innovation – particularly in oncology – is rarely linear. There are moments of rapid progress, but there are also periods where data challenges assumptions and forces a change in direction.

Setbacks are not failures if they result in learning. In complex areas like cancer biology, it is unrealistic to expect every hypothesis to hold or every program to succeed on the first attempt. What matters is whether an organization is structured to absorb those learnings, adapt its strategy and continue moving forward with new insights.

This mindset is especially important in areas of high unmet need, particularly in oncology, where the development of new medicines can be challenging. Our goal has always been to pursue innovation that has the potential to make a meaningful difference. It is our sense of obligation to patients and society as a whole that continues to drive us to push the boundaries of science towards our ultimate purpose of enriching quality of life around the world.

Q: The ADC space is now one of the most competitive areas in oncology R&D. Why did Daiichi Sankyo remain committed to ADCs when the wider pharmaceutical industry was moving away from them?

A: The concept behind ADCs is not new. The idea of targeting cancer cells with chemotherapy has been a source of excitement for more than a century. However, early ADCs were seen by many as a disappointment. There were significant technical challenges – issues around stability, delivery and efficacy. Many in the industry decided to move on to other areas where the promise of success seemed clearer.

However, Daiichi Sankyo saw a unique opportunity. More than 15 years ago, the late former Head of Research, Dr Toshinori Agatsuma, and his team, including me, in Shinagawa, Japan, set their sights on unlocking the previously untapped potential of ADCs. Since then, we have remained immensely proud of the bold decision we took in devoting ourselves to ADCs all those years ago. Daiichi Sankyo is now one of the fastest-growing oncology companies in the world, with a broad pipeline in clinical development across multiple types of cancer.

Q: Recent clinical data across the ADC field suggest that a broad, all-comers approach does not always deliver the expected outcome. How has that influenced Daiichi Sankyo's R&D strategy?

A: This has been one of the most important lessons for the entire field. There was initially a hope that highly potent ADCs might deliver transformational benefit across very broad patient populations. What we are now seeing is a more nuanced reality.

Efficacy depends not just on the drug, but on tumor biology, target expression, intracellular processing and patient-specific factors. Recognizing this has shifted our focus toward precision – matching the right therapy to the right patient.

Advances in biomarker science, including computational and digital pathology tools, are making that possible in ways that were simply not available a decade ago. These technologies allow us to move beyond binary definitions of target positivity and toward a deeper understanding of how targets are expressed and distributed within cancer cells.

This evolution is critical for ADCs. By improving patient selection, we can increase the probability of meaningful clinical benefit while reducing unnecessary treatment for patients unlikely to respond.

Biomarkers are becoming central to how we design clinical trials and evaluate new programs. They inform everything from patient selection to endpoint interpretation. Different ADCs may require different biomarker strategies depending on their target, payload and mechanism of action, so maintaining scientific flexibility remains important.

Q: How is Daiichi Sankyo using digital technology and AI to support future innovation?

A: We continue to invest in digital technology and AI to improve R&D efficiency and accelerate clinical development across the organization. These capabilities support biomarker discovery and research, analysis of clinical and real-world data, and integrated processes spanning study design, protocol writing, patient enrollment and site selection.

At the same time, we are strengthening integrated end-to-end capabilities from research through manufacturing to accelerate delivery of new medicines to patients. As our pipeline progresses, we continue building standalone R&D capabilities that allow us to apply these technologies more effectively across development activities.

Our broader breakthrough-generating technologies (so-called BGTs) strategy combines Daiichi Sankyo's proprietary technologies with research across multiple diseases to generate diverse new drug candidates and build a high-probability portfolio.

Q: Looking ahead, what does the next phase of ADC innovation look like for Daiichi Sankyo?

A: We see the ADC field as still being at a relatively early stage of evolution, with significant opportunity ahead. Our recent progress has been driven by the strength of our current ADC portfolio.

However, to support continued growth, we are enhancing our R&D efforts through a BGT approach, which is a platform-based drug discovery model intended to facilitate the development of innovative medicines. By 2030, Daiichi Sankyo aims to identify additional BGTs, which may include ADCs with novel cytotoxic payloads or immuno-oncology payloads, antibody-engineered ADCs, multispecific antibodies, targeted protein degradation and small interfering RNA, with the goal of expanding our pipeline with multiple new indications across several medicines. In addition, while oncology remains a key focus area, we will continue to advance discovery-stage research in specialty medicine, creating opportunities for future growth and new business development.

Ultimately, innovation in oncology is a cumulative effort. Each success, each setback and each refinement contributes to the development of innovative medicines and helps push the boundaries of what is possible for patients with cancer. Our commitment is to remain part of that forward momentum – by continuing to learn, adapt and improve standards of care for patients worldwide.

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April 2026 HQ/ONP/04/26/0004