Just as Xerox quits merger acquisition with Fujifilm, the latter has just announced a merger with Toyama Chemicals to form Fujifilm Toyama.
Toyama Chemical is a company that conducts the research, development, manufacture, and sales of small molecule pharmaceutical products, and FUJIFILM RI Pharma Co., Ltd.
Fujifilm said in a statement that in preparation for the launch of the new company, the Company has agreed with Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdings Co., Ltd., that the company will acquire all of the shares of TOYAMA CHEMICAL held by Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdings, making TOYAMA CHEMICAL a wholly-owned subsidiary on July 31, 2018. The Company conducts its pharmaceutical business focused on the small molecule pharmaceutical products of TOYAMA CHEMICAL and the diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals of FUJIFILM RI Pharma.
Along with the demand for responding to unmet medical needs, the practice of proper diagnoses that to optimize treatment have become increasingly important, and the Company seeks to accelerate the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic drugs and to further strengthen the relationship between “diagnosis” and “treatment” by merging TOYAMA CHEMICAL and FUJIFILM RI Pharma.
The new company, FUJIFILM Toyama Chemical, will closely collaborate with FUJIFILM Corporation (“Fujifilm”), which conducts research on new drugs, to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals and therapeutic drugs with unique mechanisms of action in the fields of “oncology”, “central nervous system diseases”, and “infectious diseases”, all of which have considerable unmet medical needs. Fujifilm will also promote the further development of drug delivery system (DDS) technologies that deliver the required amount of a drug to the specific area of the body on the necessary schedule.
Its liposome preparation technologies*1 and micro-needle array*2 will be applied not only to existing drugs, but expanding to promising next-generation drugs such as nucleic acid drugs and gene therapy drugs. FUJIFILM Toyama Chemical will promote the efficient clinical development of therapeutic drugs in combination with diagnostics, increasing the accuracy and speed of the introduction of new therapies. In addition, by utilizing Fujifilm’s in vitro diagnostic (IVD) devices and reagents as well as its diagnostic drugs, FUJIFILM Toyama Chemical will expand its offering of comprehensive solutions from “diagnosis” to “treatment.”
The Fujifilm Group acquired manufacturing and marketing approval in Japan for Avigan® Tablets, an anti-influenza virus drug, and is conducting clinical trials of Alzheimer’s disease drug T-817MA in Japan and the U.S., as well as developing and marketing novel radiopharmaceuticals.
