Skip to main content
Chris Arendt

Chris Arendt

Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Research at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, overseeing global R&D labs and AI integration in drug discovery.

Aug 10, 2026

3:27
How do you and your team sort of stay connected to the patient perspective, and how does sort of real world decisions impact the decisions that you make?
3:36
That is such an important question.
3:38
In fact, it's so important for our ultimate success that we actually not just leverage cool science, right, but that we can bring forward something that's really differentiated and meaningful to patients.
3:49
And, and to do that, of course, we need to be at f- the frontiers of science, especially translational science, understanding well the journeys that patients take and the challenges that they have with those different, with the disease burden across the world and where-- so where...
4:04
And it goes beyond that.
4:06
It goes beyond that to what are the endpoints and quality of life components that are also really important to those patients.
4:12
So one thing that we do is, is interface with patient groups throughout the journey of all of our development programs.
5:09
For you leading the scientific strategy, what has energized you about working alongside Julie, and how does her vision influence the way the greater team thinks about innovation, thinks about growth, and thinks about, I think, most importantly, delivering for patients?
15:19
[laughs]
15:19
I mean, well, I'll give you s- One, one, one of the first examples for us is we worked with a large molecule AI company out of George Church's, uh, lab called Nabla, was we had a pro- a protein.
15:31
It was a large molecule, not an antibody, that was n- not developable.
15:36
We'd actually brought it in through a partner.
15:38
It's for myasthenia gravis.
15:39
It's really an interesting mechanism.
15:41
Not s- not s- it's just n- not manufacturable, ultimately.

11 MINS LATER

26:42
So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your expectations, not only of how this changes discovery, which you've talked a little bit about, but the nature of alliances and the way that you're looking at, um, at opportunities of-- that come to you.

We value your privacy

We use cookies to understand how you use our platform and to improve your experience. Click “Accept All” to consent, or “Decline non-essential” to opt out of non-essential cookies. Read our Privacy Policy.