Trusted Japanese Healthcare Products & Pharmaceuticals

PD-1 cancer immunotherapy

A major shift in how tumours are treated worldwide. It is now applied across dozens of cancers, including lung cancer, gastric cancer, melanoma and renal cancer.

iPS cells

This achievement does not require destroying embryos: the cells can be prepared directly from the patient’s own skin or blood, which avoids the ethical controversy.

iPS cells can differentiate into many types of human cell and may in future be used to grow tissue and organs for hard-to-treat diseases, without immune rejection (regenerative medicine). They also make it possible to reproduce a patient’s disease process in vitro for precise drug screening and toxicity testing.

Avermectin and ivermectin

Professor Satoshi Omura (2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) discovered avermectin through research on soil microorganisms, and that work led to the development of ivermectin. Ivermectin became one of the most important antiparasitic medicines in the world and has protected hundreds of millions of people from parasitic diseases such as river blindness and lymphatic filariasis. His research reflects a world-class Japanese contribution to natural-product drug discovery and the life sciences. Newer research indicates that ivermectin may inhibit cancer cells through several pathways and may become a future drug candidate.

Antibody diversity

In 1987 Professor Susumu Tonegawa received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for explaining the genetic mechanism of antibody diversity. He was the first to show that human B lymphocytes generate an enormous repertoire of antibodies through DNA gene rearrangement, allowing them to recognise a wide range of bacteria, viruses and other foreign pathogens. This discovery laid the theoretical foundation of modern immunology and antibody engineering, and drove progress in monoclonal antibody medicines, cancer immunotherapy, vaccine development and the treatment of autoimmune disease.

① Antibody-based medicines

Many major biologics today are built on antibody research, for example:

• Rituximab
• Trastuzumab
• Pembrolizumab
• Nivolumab

These medicines are widely used in cancer, autoimmune and inflammatory disease.

② Cancer immunotherapy

The development of modern cancer immunotherapy, for example:

• PD-1 inhibitors
• PD-L1 inhibitors
• CTLA-4 inhibitors

All of it rests on research into antibodies and the immune system.

Mass spectrometry of biological macromolecules

In 2002 Koichi Tanaka received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing soft laser desorption ionisation mass spectrometry for the analysis of biological macromolecules. He was the first to achieve intact ionisation and precise measurement of large biomolecules such as proteins, providing key technology for proteomics, early disease diagnosis, drug development and precision medicine. The breakthrough made modern mass spectrometry an indispensable tool in life science and medical research.

Chiral catalysis (asymmetric hydrogenation)

In 2001 the Japanese scientist Ryoji Noyori received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering chirally catalysed hydrogenation. His BINAP chiral catalyst system enabled efficient, highly selective synthesis of single-chirality molecules, solving a key problem in modern organic synthesis and in the pharmaceutical industry. It is widely applied in the research and production of antibiotics, anticancer medicines and cardiovascular medicines, and has advanced green chemistry and precision synthesis.