About the Authors

Hideo Yoshida

hiyosida@kowa.co.jp

Affiliation Tokyo New Drug Research Laboratories, Kowa Company, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

Yuka Ashikawa

Affiliation Tokyo New Drug Research Laboratories, Kowa Company, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

Shinsuke Itoh

Affiliation Tokyo New Drug Research Laboratories, Kowa Company, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

Takashi Nakagawa

Affiliation Tokyo New Drug Research Laboratories, Kowa Company, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

Akimune Asanuma

Affiliation Tokyo New Drug Research Laboratories, Kowa Company, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

Sohei Tanabe

Affiliation Tokyo New Drug Research Laboratories, Kowa Company, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan

Yoshihiro Inoue

Affiliation D. Western Therapeutics Institutes, Inc., Nagoya, Japan

Hiroyoshi Hidaka

Affiliation D. Western Therapeutics Institutes, Inc., Nagoya, Japan

Competing Interests

HY, YA, SI, TN, AA, and ST are employees of Kowa Company, Ltd. YI and HH is an employee and founder of D. Western Therapeutics Institutes, Inc., respectively. Kowa Company has been developing K-134 as a drug for the treatment of intermittent claudication. D. Western therapeutics institutes, Inc. and Kowa Company, Ltd. have a patent associated with K-134 (WO/97/12869). This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: HY YA SI YI HH. Performed the experiments: HY YA SI YI. Analyzed the data: HY YA SI AA ST YI. Wrote the paper: HY SI TN.