Read the full article with photos at:
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/2013/0327_01.html
Ninety-nine people with ninety-nine nationalities got together to break a world record in Beijing, China. The world record breaking event took place in Beijing Blue Ocean International Business Building where the POCARI SWEAT team members organized the March 27th sauna gathering.
The Guinness World Record was having ninety-nine nationalities be in a sauna for five minutes all at the same time. Each participant had their passports checked by the Guinness World Record official before being let into the venue. After spending five very hot minutes in the sauna, it was the perfect time to provide what these participants lost during their sweating session, fluids and electrolytes.
POCARI SWEAT ion supply drinks were passed out to all the participants as soon as they came out from the large heated room with glass walls. This health drink easily replenished the fluids and ions (electrolytes) lost while perspiring. It is an ideal beverage for those who have been sweating while playing sports, working or sitting in a sauna! It can also hydrate the body first thing in the morning.
Read the full article with photos at:
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/2013/0321_01.html
Otsuka Pharmaceutical continues to increase its visibility on the global health policy stage, and recently sponsored the Healthcare in Asia 2013 conference.
It was hosted by the Economist Conferences, publisher of the esteemed magazine The Economist. The event was held on March 21st and March 22nd in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and featured a variety of speakers including the Minister of Health in Malaysia, the Secretary of Finance in the Philippines, the Deputy Minister of Health in Taiwan, numerous other senior officials from national governments and international agencies such as the World Health Organization and numerous senior figures from academia and the business world.
Although tuberculosis was not the central theme of the conference, one speaker, Dr. Arata Kochi, a former senior official at the WHO was in charge of anti-TB programs, spoke about the steadily worsening problem of multi-drug resistant TB.
Dr. Kochi noted that private healthcare sectors in Asian countries are not equipped to deal with long-term care in a cost-effective manner. Dr. Kochi noted that TB patients who are not tracked carefully, stop taking medication as soon as they feel better, which increases the spread of resistant TB strains. He explained that a well-funded anti-TB program with treatment follow-up and data collection and analysis could serve as an excellent model for diseases such as diabetes and cancer, diseases that are also increasing across Asia as people live longer.
As a sponsor, Otsuka had a booth that highlighted facts about multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and the company’s long-standing commitment to TB research. Visitors to the booth were sometimes surprised to learn from Otsuka Public Relations staff that the company was the world’s lead investor in TB drug development in 2011 (the last year for which data is available).
Read the full article with photos at:
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/2013/0315_01.html
The March 15th, 2013 event kicked off as fish of all sizes swam in an aquarium in Shinagawa, Japan, while a professor of ophthalmology, Shigeru Kinoshita, from Kyoto talked about the essence of dry eye and about its latest treatment.
An Aquarium was chosen as the site for this seminar, so that the participants were able to understand what dry eye is and to learn about the similarities and differences between the eyes of fish and humans.
The body surfaces of a fish, including its eyes, are covered with mucous membranes. In contrast, during the course of evolution, the body surfaces of humans keratinized from mucous membranes into layers of skin, which is more tolerant to dryness.
The surface of human eyes, however, has remained as mucous membranes in order to retain its transparency and smooth, hairless nature. A layer of tears on top of mucous membranes covering eye surfaces are what protects the eyes from dryness. Healthy, normal mucous membranes and mucous play important roles in keeping the tears clean, as in neat and smooth rather than hygienic clean.
Professor Kinoshita pointed out that dry eye is not just about quantity of tear fluid. The eyes sense 'dryness', 'gritty/sandy sensation', 'pain', and discomfort, because mucin, which is one of the tear components, decreases and the ocular mucous membrane becomes irritated.
Japan is a leading nation when it comes to the treatment of dry eye, says Professor Kinoshita. Until recently, available medications only affected the quality of tears, but now a more proactive dry eye medication is available that can treat both mucin and the mucous membrane.
Read the full article including photos at
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/2013/0307_01.html
On March 7th, 2013, the first Otsuka Media Exchange was held at Tokushima, Japan, the origin of Otsuka just an hour south by plane from Tokyo.
Otsuka Pharmaceutical President & Representative Director, Taro Iwamoto, Ph.D. presented to the media Otsuka’s achievements over the past 3 years. He spoke about the main business areas including Central Nervous System, cardio-renal area, oncology and ophthalmology. The presentation was entitled “all for creativity”, and demonstrated Otsuka’s spirit of creativity from tip to toe.
Dr. Iwamoto pointed out that there were 2 specific types of ‘innovations’ during his presentation which showed exactly what Otsuka’s pharmaceutical business aims to offer.
First, it is innovation through “new indication in new category”, which is about the ability to take our new first-in-class-in-the-world drugs and develop them into altogether different therapeutic categories. Second, it is innovation through “prevention of disease relapses” by offering compliance-management in central nervous disorders.
Director of Fellow Qs' Research Institute, Tetsuro Kikuchi, Ph.D., talked about Otsuka’s demanding and “unsmooth” research style in the course of searching for neuropsychiatric drugs.
“Otsuka’s drug discovery does not rely on computer algorithms, but relies heavily on each and every researcher’s inspiration and his or her passion to follow through that belief - it is that spirit of never-giving-up that leads to our success” says Kikuchi.
Ulf Wiinberg, the CEO of Lundbeck, one of Otsuka’s global partners, was a guest speaker. He highlighted that Otsuka-Lundbeck partnership is one of the largest ever seen in the field of Central Nervous System and hence the enormous promise that the alliance holds for the patients.
Dr. Iwamoto noted Otsuka’s alliances are ‘horizontal collaborations’, and is the single most important factor in partnerships. Both partners should be able to contribute strengths to their mutual benefits and at times progress through friendly rivalry.
There was also a surprise performance by Japanese calligraphy artist, Souun Takeda. Master calligrapher Takeda created artwork featuring two large Japanese characters, “Sou” and “Jitsu”.
The work of art was intended to reflect Otsuka’s motto. “Sou” translates to “creation” and “Jitsu”, the process of taking an idea and turning it into reality.
The two-story high Tomato Tree stands prominently at the Tokushima Institute which was the setting where nearly fifty international and domestic journalists to hear and discuss the growth of Otsuka Pharmaceutical’s business.