Fujifilm Holdings unveiled plans to merge Toyama Chemical, a company that conducts the research, development, manufacture, and sales of small molecule pharmaceutical products, and Fujifilm RI Pharma, a company that conducts the research, development, manufacture, and sales of radiopharmaceuticals, to form Fujifilm Toyama Chemical. The new company will be operational as of October 1, 2018 in order to accelerate the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic drugs.   

In preparation for the launch of the new company, Fujifilm Holdings has agreed with Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdings 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 new company, Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, will closely collaborate with Fujifilm Corporation, 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. The company 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 and micro-needle array will be applied not only to existing drugs, but expanding to promising next-generation drugs such as nucleic acid drugs and gene therapy drugs.