Kiyoshi Takayama has a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical science from the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan. He worked for more than 12 years as a research scientist at Taisho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Japan, where he was involved in various drug discovery programs for chronic inflammation and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). He also contributed to research on vascular inflammation conducted by Dr. Libby (a current scientific advisor of NBHL) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. After leaving Taisho, Takayama founded NBHL in 2006.