
Japan's Nikon, others to invest $675m in cutting-edge drug production
KOHEI YAMADA and TATSUYA OZAKI
TOKYO -- Japanese companies such as Nikon and materials maker AGC plan to invest a total of over 100 billion yen ($675 million) by fiscal 2027 to boost production of stem cell-based and other cutting-edge drugs, an area where Japan trails the U.S. and Europe.
Regenerative medicines -- a field that includes products used to re-create lost tissue, gene therapies and CAR T-cell cancer therapies -- are expected to see strong growth.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Yomiuri Shimbun
27 minutes ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Shikoku: New Anpanman Ekiben Boxed Meal on Sail; Shaped Like Anpanman Train
TAKAMATSU — Shikoku Railway Co. (JR Shikoku) has started to offer a boxed meal, or ekiben, in a case modeled after one of the famous Anpanman Trains. The meal can be purchased at JR Takamatsu and Kochi stations as well as on Anpanman Trains. The introduction of the new Anpanman ekiben was made to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first Anpanman Train. There are now several Anpanman Train designs, with the new meal's box modeled after the most popular 8000 Series Anpanman Train, which has served Okayama, Takamatsu and Matsuyama stations since 2016. The meal includes omelet rice with an Anpanman brand, a hamburger steak, fried shrimp and potato salad. It is sold at ¥1,800, including tax. 'We want people to enjoy a special trip [on the Anpanman Train] with the boxed meal,' JR Shikoku President Kazuyuki Shinomiya said. In addition to the latest 8000 Series ekiben, JR Shikoku offers a meal in a box shaped like Anpanman's face, including meatballs and fried egg. They can be reserved online at Japanese.


The Mainichi
2 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Japan education ministry OKs plan to exclude foreign PhD students from living expenses aid
TOKYO -- The Japanese education ministry's human resources committee on July 30 broadly approved a plan to limit the recipients of living expenses aid for doctoral candidates to Japanese students only, to be implemented as early as the 2027 academic year. The aid program, known as the "SPRING" (Support for Pioneering Research Initiated by the Next Generation) initiative, was launched in academic 2021 by the ministry's Japan Science and Technology Agency. It pays doctoral candidates up to 2.9 million yen (about $19,200) annually for living and research expenses. In the 2024 academic year, of the total 10,564 recipients, about 40%, or 4,125 individuals, were international students, with Chinese nationals making up the largest number -- 3,151. This led to criticism from ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers and others in the Diet. In response, the education ministry reviewed its policy, proposing at the July 30 committee meeting to limit the recipients of living expense support -- up to 2.4 million yen per year -- exclusively to Japanese students. Research funding, on the other hand, will continue to be available to international students. Additionally, the scope of research funding will be expanded to include working students with stable incomes, who were previously ineligible. Meanwhile, some 19,300 signatures collected under the statement, "Do not discriminate against students based on nationality," were presented to the ministry on the same day by people opposing the policy change, accompanied by a protest rally. A ministry official explained, "The policy change reflects the original intent to support Japanese students advancing to doctoral programs, but the ministry acknowledges the importance of supporting international students and plans to address this through other policies."


Yomiuri Shimbun
4 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Spacex Launches Joint Astronaut Crew to ISS in NASA's Crew-11 Mission
WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – An international crew of four astronauts launched toward the International Space Station from Florida on Friday aboard a SpaceX rocket, embarking on a routine NASA mission that could be the first of many to last a couple months longer than usual. The four-person crew – two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and Japanese astronaut – boarded SpaceX's Dragon capsule sitting atop its Falcon 9 rocket at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and beat gloomy weather to blast off at 11:43 a.m. ET (1543 GMT). After a roughly 16 hour flight, they will arrive at the ISS at around 3 a.m. (0700 GMT) on Saturday. While normal crew rotation missions last roughly six months, the Crew-11 crew may be the first to settle into a new routine time of eight months, intended to better align U.S. mission schedules with Russia's missions, NASA said. Over the next few months, NASA officials will monitor the health of SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which remains docked to the ISS, before committing the mission to a full eight months. Thursday's mission, called Crew-11, includes NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui. A previous attempt to launch on Thursday was scratched at the last minute because of bad weather. A delegation of senior Russian space officials, including the head of Russia's space agency, Dmitry Bakanov, was in Florida for the launch attempt on Thursday, but it was unclear whether they stayed in town for Friday's launch. Their visit on Thursday included the first face-to-face meeting between the heads of NASA and Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, since 2018. Roscosmos said Bakanov and acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy discussed continued ISS operations and cooperation on the moon. The space cooperation is a bright spot in otherwise largely frosty U.S.-Russia relations since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, apart from ISS cooperation, Russia's invasion isolated Moscow's space program from the West and foiled plans to cooperate on NASA's Artemis moon program. Russia opted to partner on China's moon program, which rivals Artemis. No new commitments on any space programs were made during the brief meeting between Bakanov and Duffy, a person familiar with the discussion said.