Management Team | About US | TSD Japan, Inc.

Yoshiharu Sakashita Representative Director, President and CEO: Sakashita joined TSD Japan in November 2007, became President in December 2007 and currently manages the company as Chief Executive Officer.
At ICI Pharmaceuticals (currently AstraZeneca K.K.). He held positions as Product Manager in the Marketing Department concerning mainly the area of oncology, Clinical Product Leader in the Clinical Development Department, and Project Manager for domestic product development in the Development and Planning Department. Later, during his years with Nippon Organon, he was Marketing Head in the areas for urology and CNS. Then he engaged in Marketing, Development and Management as a head of main strategy areas such as General Manager for respiratory diseases area in Nippon Boehringer-Ingelheim Co., Ltd.
Toru Kino, PhD Executive Director, Head of Business strategy Unit: Dr. Kino participated in the establishment of TSD Japan in July 2005 and is overseeing the activities relating to the drug discovery assistance.
He involved extensively in the discovery, research and development of Prograph^® (FK-506) when he was a chief researcher in the Exploratory Research Laboratory, Development Department and the PMD Research Laboratory at Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. He received following awards for this contribution: Agricultural Chemical Technology Award (1995); Kinki Invention Award, Encouragement Prize of Ministry of Education and Science (2003); and National Invention Award, Prime Minister Invention Prize (2004). He is a member of Clinical Strategy Evaluation Committee at RIKEN, Japan and a part-time lecturer of Faculty of Medicine at Tokyo Medical and Dental University.
Masanori Oka External Director: He joined TSD Japan as an Advisor on October 2006, and was appointed to the position of External Director on December 2008.
Shinichi Sase Corporate Officer, Head of Corporate Strategy Office: Sase joined TSD Japan in July 2007, and is having a wide range of experiences in clinical development from planning of development strategy, clinical study execution, drug approval preparation and to responding to the regulatory authority.
While at Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., he engaged in the compound evaluation of licensed products and research & planning and clinical development of the company drugs. He then led many product development projects as a Project Leader and engaged in domestic development of new drugs targeted for global market when he was with Pfizer Japan Inc. and Pharmacia Corp.
Masayuki Katae Corporate Officer, Head of Business Development Div.: Katae joined TSD Japan in September 2007, and is utilizing his networking capacities with those in the licensing unit of domestic and foreign pharmaceutical companies.
While he was in Bayer Yakuhin, Ltd., he worked as medical representative, Product Management Manager, Manager in the Licensing Patent Division and Manager in the Alliance Management Division. During those years, he involved in the in-licensing of Bayer products, which had already been in the development stage abroad, for the Japanese market by collaborating with Bayer HQ and Bayer Corporation USA, and helped to establish alliances with pharmaceutical companies in Japan.
Yasuhiro Takamatsu Corporate Officer, Head of Administration Div.: Takamatsu joined TSD Japan in January 2008, and is overseeing human resources, general affairs, finance and accounting.
He engaged in human resources related matters, including planning, labor issues, hiring and education of employees while he was in the Human Resources Department at Nihon Ciba-Geigy K.K. (currently Novartis Pharma K.K.). He later served as Manager of Human Resources and General Affairs at pharmaceutical and healthcare industries such as Merck Hoei Inc.