Leadership & Team

Brünger has more than 25 years of global drug development experience. He held senior R&D positions for Schering AG and Pharmacia Corporation in Japan and Germany from 1989 to 2003, before founding IDEC. He is also a licensed physician in Germany and Japan.

Dr. Brünger’s unique experience in Japanese clinical practice, medical research, and international drug development enable him to work with clients to build effective solutions to integrating Japanese regulatory and marketing requirements into global development programs. He has prepared and managed more than 50 PMDA consultations, and he pioneered Japanese-Korean clinical co-development and studies in ethnic Japanese outside Japan.

Mr. Kato has more than 30 years’ experience working at large multi-national pharmaceutical companies, including Roche and Amgen.

regulatory science for the development of global product development strategies. Mr. Kato achieved several successful globally-integrated programs involving Japan by leading global project teams through PMDA consultations and clarifying the regulatory requirements for Japanese submissions—including CTNs and Japanese NDAs—for global product development programs.

Ms. Goto has over 20 years of global drug development and new product planning experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She is responsible for providing strategic project leadership for all IDEC product development services.

Prior to her current role, she led multiple R&D project teams in a variety of therapeutic areas and completed many successful marketing application authorizations (MAA). She has broad experience in multi-disciplinary global leadership positions, including as head of portfolio management and R&D project leader at Sanofi, global project manager at Takeda, and clinical project leader at Eli Lilly Japan.

She also holds an MBA from Waseda University and a B.S. in pharmaceutical science from Nagoya City University.

Dr. Aoyama, who holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Science, has more than 25 years of global drug development experience and is an expert in Non-clinical Development and Clinical Pharmacology (transitioning from pre-clinical to clinical phase). He gained his working experience at Takeda, and most recently at Eli Lilly in Japan, where he was a Team Leader of Eli Lilly’s Japan PKPD Group.

Dr. Aoyama’s experience covers a wide range of therapeutic areas including Diabetes, Cardiovascular, CNS, Oncology, and Immunology, with an in-depth understanding of the Japanese regulatory environment to support the design and implementation of required studies for regulatory approval in Japan.

Ms. Ishida is responsible for controlling all matters related to Finance, Human Resources and General Affairs at IDEC. Ms. Ishida has strong financial analysis and people management skills developed over 25 years’ experience in a global consumer goods company. Her contributions covered all financial areas, included development of financial strategy, budget and forecast management, accounting, tax, costing, business planning and analysis, total supply chain productivity improvement and agile project management.

Prior to her current role, she also set up a new legal entity for brand divestiture. She led the organization setup, people management, and Finance/Human Resources related process development as controller.

Mr. Ishizawa had been working over 30 years at multi-national pharma and biotech companies, including BMS, Amgen, MSD and UCB.

In particular, he has held leadership roles in product development projects of biologics for 20 years. He has experience in a broad range of professional areas including not only commercial, but also R&D, and played leading roles at start-up companies.

Always “thinking of a difference” in his mind, he is responsible for Commercial Strategy including Commercial Evaluation, Market Access and Marketing Strategy at IDEC.

He is a registered pharmacist (R.Ph.) and holds a Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from Graduate School of Pharmacy at The University of Mississippi.

Mr. Miyamoto has more than 25 years of experience in CMC-RA area of pharmaceutical development across a wide range of products including controlled release drugs and genetic recombinants. He has excellent expertise in reviewing and drafting CTD documents in both English and Japanese in order to fulfill Japanese regulatory requirements.

Prior to joining IDEC, he worked for Japanese subsidiaries of global pharmaceutical companies including BMS, Novo, Janssen, US-Merck, and Ferring as a CMC-RA expert or the head of CMC-RA section.