Growth strategy
To be the best reliable API manufacturer
that is close to patients and drug development.*CDMO: Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization
Our mainstay products are tranexamic acid, which has the world's top market share, and prostaglandins, which are manufactured using advanced organic synthesis technology. While making these mainstay products stronger and broader, we will become a CDMO capable of providing services at all development stages of drug manufacturing through our core proprietary organic synthesis technology and our quality assurance capabilities based on global standards. Hence, we are committed to bringing health and smiles to people worldwide.
Reasons for deciding to expand the CDMO business
As a member of the Kirin Group, we provide a stable supply of numerous products to pharmaceutical companies worldwide, including tranexamic acid, which has the world's top market share, and prostaglandins, which are manufactured using advanced organic synthesis technologies. In particular, prostaglandins are produced stably under GMP control using proprietary synthesis technologies that we have cultivated since the 1970s.
In addition, we have applied asymmetric catalysts and enzymes to various production processes, taking on the challenge of unprecedented technologies without being constrained by common sense, and have manufactured numerous process development results and patents. Not only that, we also have global quality assurance capabilities that can respond to regulatory inspections, including those of the FDA (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration).
In this way, we deliver high-quality active pharmaceutical ingredients worldwide based on our core proprietary organic synthesis technologies and our quality assurance capabilities based on global standards. We are convinced that this know-how will help us solve the issues in the so-called CDMO business, such as manufacturing compounds that are difficult to synthesize, developing more robust processes, industrializing from gram to ton scale, and responding to GMP.
As mentioned, the affinity between our strengths and the CDMO business is exceptionally high, and we decided to expand our CDMO business and resolve the various issues facing pharmaceutical companies in partnership with pharmaceutical companies. This is because we believe that we can realize our goal of bringing health and smiles to people worldwide
Initiatives to Expand CDMO Business
In the early stages of development, flexibility is required to manufacture on a small scale, make sudden process changes, and use laboratory manufacturing methods that are not optimized for commercial production. We are considering the introduction of a pilot plant for research and development that can handle the development of candidate compounds and APIs for use in non-clinical and clinical trials so that we can respond flexibly and speedily to the diverse demands of pharmaceutical companies. This plant enables us to handle everything from process development in the early stages of development to subsequent scale-up manufacturing and combines it with our existing manufacturing facilities to provide services in all stages of development.
We are also focusing on public relations activities to raise our profile. We actively participate in exhibitions and academic conferences, post articles in the media, and offer technical presentations to pharmaceutical-related companies.
Strategy for Developing Human Resources
In the CDMO business, we need to be flexible and fast in solving a wide range of issues facing pharmaceutical companies, including process development, study of analytical methods, and scale-up. To this end, we will further increase the number of human resources with expertise in the CDMO business and enhance our expertise in the fields of manufacturing, quality, and technological development through practical experiences such as scale-up studies using pilot plants for R&D and manufacturing investigational drugs. In addition, we provide opportunities for employees to learn on their own initiative, promote their autonomous career development, provide training to improve their mindset skills, dispatch them to universities, and support them in obtaining their Ph.D. degrees, thereby stimulating their motivation to grow. Employees with diverse strengths will become one team, and by demonstrating our comprehensive strengths, we will lead to proposals that exceed the expectations of pharmaceutical companies.
Work Environment for Employees
The values of the Kirin Group ("One KIRIN” Values), including ourselves, are "Passion," "Integrity," and "Diversity." We are also working to improve the work environment so that each employee can share these values and bring their individual strengths to bear. We have promoted the development of an environment where employees can work with peace of mind, such as an extensive leave system, employee benefits, and health management, to realize a healthy and high-quality life. We have also obtained the government’s "Eruboshi (3rd stage)," "Kurumin," and "Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organizations" certification systems. In recent years, we have also been working to improve employee engagement.
As a manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in Toyama, the capital of the pharmaceutical industry, we will make proposals that exceed the expectations of pharmaceutical companies in all stages of drug development, from non-clinical to commercial production, such as process development and scale-up, by making full use of our proprietary organic synthesis technology. We will become a partner that is relied upon as the best in pharmaceutical manufacturing and bring health and smiles to people worldwide.