Disease Prevention

Janssen Research & Development's three new research platforms focus on disease prevention, disease interception, and the microbiome – areas of transformational medical innovation that are expected to change the healthcare landscape. The teams will collaborate closely with Janssen’s five therapeutic areas as well as with external partners to underpin ongoing research and promote scientific knowledge in these areas to change the way diseases are managed.

The Janssen Prevention Center (JPC) will focus on the prevention of chronic, non-communicable diseases such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, cancer, and autoimmune diseases, which increasingly impact aging populations and burden healthcare systems worldwide. ‘To make a difference in these and other major areas of unmet medical need, our goal is to identify and research innovative solutions to extend people’s healthy life span and reduce morbidity,’ says Jaap Goudsmit, M.D., Ph.D., Global Head, Janssen Prevention Center.

The Disease Interception Accelerator (DIA) is a new, incubator-like group which addresses the root causes of a disease. ‘Disease interception will intervene earlier than today’s clinically accepted point of diagnosis and seek solutions that stop, reverse or inhibit the progress of that disease, for instance type 1 diabetes or various forms of cancer,’ explains Benjamin Wiegand, Ph.D., Global Head, Disease Interception Accelerator. ‘Through this novel approach, we aim to predict and pre-empt an individual from progressing to disease before they get sick.’ The DIA works to understand disease susceptibility, risk assessment, and approaches to the causes of disease such as genetic predisposition, environmental exposure and phenotypic alterations. It will utilize a combination of traditional pharmaceutical and other, non-pharmaceutical approaches to intercept disease progression for at-risk populations, thus promoting improved individual and societal health and wellness.

The Janssen Human Microbiome Institute (JHMI) focuses on an emerging area of science which is increasingly recognized as crucial to human health. ‘By better understanding the microbiome, the diverse population of bacteria living in and on the human body, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of its role in disease and find new therapies to address major autoimmune diseases and other conditions for which no sufficient treatment options exist today,’ says Dirk Gevers, Ph.D., Global Head of the Janssen Human Microbiome Institute. ‘Through cutting-edge research and a global collaborative network, we aim to translate the science of the microbiome into therapeutic targets and diagnostic procedures that have the potential to transform human health.’