Read the full story with photos at:
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/2014/1130_01.html
The idea to have Santa visit Tohoku children affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake came when a group of students from Kanto Gakuin University visited a preschool in Kamaishi City in Iwate Prefecture. It was a summer picture book reading event to provide emotional support and relief to the children affected by the natural disaster. At the end of their visit, the children said, “When you come back, bring Santa Claus!”
Planned and implemented by the Kanto Gakuin University students in December 2011, the Santa Project was born. This was in collaboration with organizations in Finland, including the traditional choir Belcanto and Santa Claus who is officially approved by Finland’s Santa Claus Village.
Since then every year, Santa Claus from Finland visits children in various areas destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami passing out gifts to bring them holiday cheer.
The Santa Project receives funding from a wide range of Japanese companies, including Otsuka Pharmaceutical. Volunteer students as well as Otsuka Pharmaceutical employees helped package SOYJOY bars and Calorie Mate in gift bags for Santa to give the children.
The Santa Project provides emotional support and relief by promoting exchange events between survivors of the disaster, including children, and people from outside the area, to ensure that the event does not fade from memory.
Santa Project volunteers travel with disaster survivors to Okinawa and Niigata, which itself has suffered from earthquake disasters in the past, Hokkaido, and other locations in Japan to promote cultural exchange between the people in these areas and the disaster survivors.
Volunteers in the Santa Project hope that it can bring people together so that they can bring each other hope and joy, in the same way that the idea of Santa Claus brings hope and joy to children around the world.
Read the full story with photos at:
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/2014/1127_01.html
Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. (OAPI), and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Development & Commercialization, Inc. (OPDC), recently put the finishing touches on a new, innovative office space in Princeton, New Jersey.
The space has been thoughtfully designed with an open floor plan that inspires creativity and facilitates everyone’s ability to connect and collaborate without barriers.
The unique design of the office reflects Otsuka’s culture, values, and vision. It provides employees with an optimal environment for brainstorming, camaraderie, and teamwork across the two companies.
A central, open staircase connects all four floors of the new building to encourage movement between floors and to create a sense of unity across the organization. Individual desks are arranged in a more open floor plan, creating an energizing team atmosphere.
In addition, through features such as flexible seating arrangements, meeting rooms of all sizes, open common areas, and a colorful interior décor, the unique workplace design effectively addresses Otsuka’s three main priorities: collaboration, big venture thinking, and innovation. And a large amount of natural light can be found on each of the building’s four levels, a feature that was identified by employees as very important.
Read the full story with photos at:
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/release/2014/1121_01.html
Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Head office: Tokyo; President: Taro Iwamoto) subsidiary Nutrition & Santé (N&S; Headquarters: Revel, France) has completed construction of a new production facility at N&S Group headquarters in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France. The ninth production facility for the N&S Group, the new factory was inaugurated with a ceremony on November 20, 2014. The new factory strengthens the N&S industrial base by expanding production capacity for Milical and other bar-type nutrition products for the European and Japanese markets.
The three existing factories in Revel currently account for approximately one third of N&S production capacity, including all bar-type products. In recent years, protein bars and other diet foods that can be easily consumed in the midst of a busy urban lifestyle are growing in popularity in France, and N&S bar-type products including Milical have posted steady growth of approximately 10% year-on-year. Constructed in response to this demand, the new factory, dedicated to production of bar-type products, will expand production capacity by approximately 1.7 times. Products from the new factory will be distributed in more than 30 countries, including Japan.
Read the full story with photos at:
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/2014/1118_01.html
"Mr. Otsuka, you are a true friend of France," said Mr. Charles-Henri Brosseau, the Consul General of the French consulate in Kyoto, Japan, in fluent Japanese, to the late Chairman Akihiko Otsuka* on November 18 of last year.
The occasion was a momentous ceremony held at the Rihga Royal Hotel in Osaka to present Mr. Otsuka with the Officer Order of the Legion of Honor on behalf of the President of France.
The Order of the Legion of Honor was established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte. It is France's highest award, and is bestowed in times of peace and war on military personnel and private citizens who have made great contributions to France in areas such as culture, science, industry, business, or creativity.
Mr. Otsuka was awarded the Order for his work promoting the Japan-France relationship through his extensive business activities in France over many years.
The ceremony consisted of an awards presentation speech by Mr. Charles-Henri Brosseau and then the actual presentation of the award, followed by an acceptance speech by Mr. Otsuka.
Everyone present, including top Otsuka Group executives, offered Mr. Otsuka their heartfelt congratulations, and many congratulatory messages were sent to the ceremony by persons not in attendance.
Otsuka Holdings President, Mr. Tatsuo Higuchi, opened the banquet that was held following the awards ceremony with a toast "To Chairman Otsuka, and the continued development of the Otsuka Group".
I am deeply honored to receive, from a representative of the President of France, France's highest award, the Officer Order of the Legion of Honor. I would like to express my sincerest thanks to you all.
In our efforts to contribute to the better health of people worldwide, and to continue our evolution into an international total health care company, the Otsuka Group has been actively expanding our business in Europe.
Specifically, most of our investments in Europe have been in France, which has become an important base of operations for the Otsuka Group. We feel that we have been rewarded for energetically pursuing new business opportunities in the field of medicine and foods and beverages while retaining our respect for and desire to learn from the traditions and culture of France, in our efforts to help the citizens of France realize the universal desire of people everywhere for improved health.
Our business activities in France have played such a prominent role for the Otsuka Group thanks to the support and cooperation of many people, including the government of France, for which we are truly grateful. Thinking back on the history of our operations since their initiation in France to the present day, being chosen to receive this most honorable award fills me with emotion and gratitude.
The Otsuka Group intends to continue working to promote creative business activities and to do our utmost to maintain and improve Japan's relationship with France. It is my sincere wish that we can all continue to work together to improve this relationship, and I look forward to your further guidance and encouragement in the future. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Today has been a great honor.
I am honored to stand before you today to present the Officer Order of the Legion of Honor to Mr. Akihiko Otsuka, a leading Japanese industrialist and international businessman – and a close friend of France.
Mr. Otsuka's company was founded in 1921 in Tokushima, Japan, and is now one of the most prominent business groups in Japan in the fields of pharmaceuticals, nutrition, and cosmetics.
Mr. Otsuka joined the company in 1960. After holding various positions at Otsuka Group companies, he became the President of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. in 1976, and in 2008 was appointed the Chairman and CEO of Otsuka Holdings. 2008 was an important year for the relationship between France and the Otsuka Group, as this was the year that Otsuka Pharmaceutical acquired Nutrition et Santé and Alma.
The Otsuka Group has made considerable contributions to France's economy and has created many jobs in France. Thanks to Mr. Otsuka, the Otsuka Group has strengthened its French operations, and the Otsuka Group currently employs close to 2500 people in France and is among the leading Japanese investors in France.
Otsuka Pharmaceutical's French subsidiary, which markets human pharmaceuticals in France, had only 10 employees when it was founded in 2004, but it now employs eight times that many. In 2006, Otsuka's Abilify received the Prix Galien award, which is given for the development of a pharmaceutical product with groundbreaking therapeutic efficacy. Nutrition et Santé, which was acquired by Otsuka Pharmaceutical in this same year, manufactures functional and nutritional food products.
I would like to take this opportunity to once again praise the special relationship France has with the Otsuka Group, a relationship that has resulted in many past success stories, and one that I have no doubt will lead to many successes in the future as well.
Mr. Otsuka, you are a true friend of France. This is evident from the Otsuka Group’s enthusiasm for participating in events held by the French Embassy. Otsuka Group senior management has made every effort to forge solid, high-level relationships with French government officials, including the French Ambassador to Japan and officials at the Invest In France Agency.
Through the partnership the Otsuka Group has created with French industry, Mr. Otsuka has emphasized two things that the peoples of both of our countries have in common: finding value in work, and the enjoyment of life.
The government of France would like to express its gratitude for all the hard work of every Otsuka employee, for your actions as the head of the company, and for the contributions that you have made to foster the relationship between our two countries. Mr. Otsuka, on behalf of the President of France, I hereby award you the Officer Order of the Legion of Honor.
Read the full story with photos at:
https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/2014/1105_01.html
Otsuka Pharmaceutical's dry eye magazine advertising campaign was awarded the first-place prize in the "Tie-in Campaign – Cosmetics" category of the 57th Japan Magazine Advertising Association Award.
The theme of the campaign was “凸凹Eye” which means bumpy surfaced eyes. It focused on "The Eyes of Craftspeople," something for which Japan is renowned for, in order to make it easy to understand that the condition called dry eye is a disease that does not result simply in dry eyes, but caused by the mucosal abnormality on the surface of the eye and making it bumpy.
The campaign featured segments on the eyes of active female professionals, along with explanations from ophthalmologists, and ran in magazines with a predominantly middle-aged female readership, a group that is particularly prone to developing dry eye.
Otsuka executive Yoshiko Wakana of the Dermatologicals & Ophthalmologicals Sales Department attended the awards ceremony, which was held in Tokyo on November 5, 2014.
Otsuka Pharmaceutical conducted an educational campaign on dry eye in various media, including this magazine advertising campaign, internet sites, and television programs.
Ms. Wakana said, "I would like to help as many patients who are suffering from dry eye as possible, by providing them with both safe and effective medicines and with high-quality information."
Read the full story with photos at:
http://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/company/globalnews/detail.php?id=225&date=2016-02-01
Dr. Gregory Fox from Sydney, Australia was presented the Young Innovator in Tuberculosis Research Award sponsored by Otsuka during the 46th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Cape Town, South Africa in December 2015.
Dr. Fox is an Australian respiratory physician and recipient of the CJ Martin Fellowship from the Australian Government. His research focuses on TB case-finding and multidrug-resistant TB in high-burden settings. Dr. Fox was the foundation country director of the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Vietnam from 2009 to 2013. During that period, in partnership with the Vietnam National TB Program, he implemented a randomized controlled trial (the ACT2 study), screening over 25,000 people for TB.
The project was innovative in its use of randomized controlled trial methodology and electronic tools that were developed especially for the trial and are scalable. Additionally, the project demonstrated the feasibility of centrally coordinated tracing of everyone who has come in contact with a person diagnosed with TB. Currently, Dr. Fox is an investigator on several ongoing public health and clinical studies of TB screening and prevention in Vietnam. He also works as a respiratory physician at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia.
The Young Innovator in TB Research Award was established through a global partnership between Otsuka Pharmaceutical and The Union. The award is administered by The Union with a grant provided by Otsuka. Award recipients are selected by a panel of experts organised independently by The Union.
The purpose of the award is to stimulate the advancement of innovative approaches in TB control and patient care. The award is open to young clinicians who have documented achievements in the formulation and implementation of clinical and operational research in the field of TB or multidrug-resistant TB.