Paper short abstract:

Scientist-entrepreneurs were catalysts for the birth of Japan's modern medical industry. This paper examines how their entrepreneurial activities contributed to building a bridge between health and business, thus transforming the existing medical culture and social constructs of medicine.

Paper long abstract:

Building Bridges between Science and Business: Considering the Role of Entrepreneurship in the Emergence of an Early Japanese Pharmaceutical Industry’

The emergence of a modern Japanese pharmaceutical industry was achieved through public-private cooperation, scientific advancements, and entrepreneurial initiative. Scientist-entrepreneurs were an especially important catalyst for the development of this industry and others. Trained in Western pharmacy, Fukuhara Arinobu founded Japan’s first Western pharmacy, Shiseidō, where he marketed the nation’s first toothpaste. He would go on to found a second health-related business, Teikoku Life Insurance Company, now known as Asahi. Kitasato Shibasaburō, a renowned physician and bacteriologist, established a highly lucrative serum production operation, with a business model that emulated similar institutions in Europe. Takamine Jōkichi, best known for his isolation and purification of adrenaline, was also the first president of a pharmaceutical firm, Sankyō (now Daiichi Sankyō), which remains even today one of Japan’s largest. The company’s first hit product, Takadiastase, was one of the Japan’s top-selling digestive remedies during much of the Meiji and Taishō periods. Medicinal businesses such as these were founded in response to a variety of factors including the rising incidence of infectious diseases, new concepts in hygiene and well-being, and even the Westernization of the Japanese diet. This paper examines the motivations of these scientist-entrepreneurs, their impact on the existing medical marketplace, and their influence on the development of other modern industries including toiletries, chemicals, and cosmetics. It also explores how their entrepreneurial activities helped to create a bridge between health and business that would gradually transform the existing medical culture and social constructs of medicine.