Strategic Partnerships with Bio-pharmaceutical Companies as well as Academic and Research Institutions Worldwide The Global Discovery Research Alliance Headquarters set up in May 2008 in Ono Pharma USA, Inc (OPUS), our US subsidiary, actively promotes drug discovery collaboration with the US and European bio-pharmaceutical companies and research collaboration with academic institutions and research institutions The resulting exploration of breakthrough drug discovery seeds and importing of leading-edge technologies wills serve to strengthen Ono's drug discovery activities.  In discovery alliance with bio-pharmaceutical companies, we aim to form partnerships in areas where we can exploit the technologies and know-how we accumulated through our priority research hitherto and where we can show our strengths in future (namely, kinase, ion-channel, bioactive lipids, biotechnology based medicines).  In the kinase area, our drug discovery alliances are with the US companies, Array BioPharma Inc. and Locus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and drug discovery efforts are underway based on kinase inhibitors, which are associated with various diseases. The initial contract research period with Array BioPharma has expired. The success story here is in the discovery of several compounds with powerful kinase inhibiting properties, thanks to Array's expertise in protein X-ray crystallography. In conjunction with Evotec AG of Germany, drug discovery effort is ongoing in the area of small molecule compounds that inhibit protease action which is associated with many diseases, offering the promise of fulfilling unmet medical needs. In ion-channel and bio-active lipids, alliance talks are underway with bio-pharmaceutical companies and universities.