Rakugi, Hiromi
Tsuchihashi, Takuya
Shimada, Kazuyuki
Numaguchi, Hirotaka
Nishida, Chisato
Yamaguchi, Hiroya
Shirakawa, Masayoshi
Azuma, Kyoichi
Fujita, Kenji P
Article History
Received: 15 September 2014
Revised: 9 December 2014
Accepted: 12 December 2014
First Online: 26 February 2015
Competing interests
: HR has received honoraria and/or fees for promotional materials from Astellas Pharma, Daiichi Sankyo, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim, Novartis Pharma, Takeda Pharmaceutical and MSD KK, and has received research funding from Astellas Pharma, Daiichi Sankyo, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, MSD KK, Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim, Novartis Pharma, Pfizer Japan and Takeda Pharmaceutical. TT has received honoraria and/or fees for promotional materials from Dainippon-Sumitomo Co. and MSD KK, and has received research funding from MSD KK. KS has received honoraria and/or fees for promotional materials from Daiichi Sankyo, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Dainippon-Sumitomo Co., Novartis Pharma KK and MSD KK. HN, CN, HY, MS and KA are employees of MSD K.K and may own stock or hold stock options in the company. KPF was an employee of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA, at the time the study was conducted.