Development of technologies and the know-hows based on antisense and decoy aptamers, combined with the establishment of the FDA's drug inspection compliance program, has accelerated the ever-increasing speed of the development of the second-generation gene products as well as RNAi drugs. This research report gives background information of those movements and the future outlook.

The development speed for RNAi drugs has been significantly high over the past years, with a couple of U.S. companies poised to start clinical examinations by the end of 2004. A survey was conducted in order to address the issues of potential RNAi-based therapies in comparison to existing drugs, and to provide a clear picture of potential benefits, relevant technologies, patent status, characteristics of development process, target diseases, and future trends.

To date, a number of patent applications related to RNAi technologies have been submitted by universities, national research institutes, and venture-capital firms, etc. in Japan. In view of those movements, in-depth face-to-face interviews were carried out by Seed Planning, Inc. targeting researchers specializing in basic research and clinical research in universities, and being involved in the development of RNAi technologies, pharmaceuticals and viral vectors.

The report also contains: company profiles, business strategies, core technology, product/service portfolios, development status, partnerships, key persons of a total of 29 venture-capital firms in the EU in the areas of gene product development, DDS, and gene analysis.