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In the financial year 2021, the annual gross profit of Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdings Co., Ltd. amounted to approximately billion Japanese yen, the lowest number of the past decade. Within the observed period, figures peaked in fiscal 2013 at around billion yen.

 Taisho Pharmaceutical 

Founded in 1912 and headquartered in Tokyo, Taisho is a Japanese pharmaceutical company with locations in Asia, North America, and Europe. Originally established as a manufacturer of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs for the prevention of ailments such as tuberculosis or beriberi, Taisho Pharmaceutical expanded its product range to prescription medicine in 1957. Nowadays, the company is involved in research and development (R&D) of the medical sector as well as the production and sale of OTC and ethical medicine, medical supplies, foods, and sanitary products. Taisho Holdings reports annual net sales of close to *** billion yen.  

 The Japanese pharmaceutical industry 

  The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the global race for vaccination development have once more revealed structural weakness within the Japanese medical market. Despite being the third-biggest pharmaceutical industry worldwide behind the United States and China, a comparably slow approval process for new medical products is known to impede both medical imports as well as sales launches of locally manufactured pharmaceuticals. This market condition was already addressed in 2014, when the national keystone pharmaceutical law was revised, making way for accelerated approvals. This has led to a slight improvement in the number of annual new drug approvals in recent years. However, seven years after the revision, Japan is still the last G-7 nation to begin its immunization campaign against the coronavirus, two months after vaccine roll-outs began in Europe and the United States. The reason for this delay is an emphasis on the need for a safe rather than speedy roll-out, especially due to concerns regarding ethnicity-specific side effects. Partial restructuring of the country’s medical sector is to be expected, as the government has since announced plans to strengthen domestic vaccine development and manufacturing. It remains to be seen if the global race will also lead to increased total expenses on R&D in the Japanese pharmaceutical manufacturing industry.