Solutions That Fit the Times

Chugai's mission is to benefit the medical community and human health around the world. As such, the role we play is continually changing. The pharmaceutical industry is facing an era of uncertainty marked by trends such as a declining birth rate and aging population, the growing need to contain healthcare costs, and low success rates and rising costs in research and development. In these circumstances, Chugai's presence in the industry is increasing. For this reason, we must address larger societal issues together with our stakeholders. One of the qualitative objectives of Chugai's fundamental goal of becoming a top pharmaceutical company is to be a “company that satisfies all its stakeholders and receives their active support and trust.” I believe that by using innovation to solve the issues facing patients and the medical community, we will earn the trust of society.

Value Creation: Progress and Results

In 2017, our numerous research and development projects showed progress, and new drug approvals and launches were on schedule. Chugai's efforts continued to focus on providing solutions for social issues by creating innovative drugs and making them available to patients as quickly as possible. However, our achievements for the year went beyond that. For example, we promoted the use of extensive safety information through the databases we built to support effective adverse drug reaction management and continuation of treatment for patients. In addition, we contributed to community-based care by establishing a solution provision system adapted to the new regional healthcare system that will begin in 2018 in Japan. We see all of these accomplishments as major steps forward.

Helping patients gain an accurate understanding of their disease and improving their social and treatment environments are also issues that we can help to address, and we made progress in these areas as well. For disease awareness, in addition to the existing activities that we conduct jointly with local public bodies, we began cooperating with companies in other industries to increase the effectiveness of our efforts. We also implemented programs to support employees during cancer treatment and after they return to work, based on the belief that this is an activity in which Chugai should take the lead. In these and other initiatives, we are at the forefront of the industry in Japan.

Meeting the Requirements and Expectations of Society

In our internal operations, we have made improvements to governance and our human resource strategy.

One initiative in particular that I have spearheaded is strengthening compliance at the global level. At Chugai, we believe that corporate ethics take priority over profits, and as such, our definition of compliance goes beyond simply following laws and regulations to include meeting the requirements and expectations of society. With the increase in our global activities, it was important that we also build a robust global compliance system. We began that effort in 2016, and in 2017 we reorganized our committee structure and established a global system that includes overseas subsidiaries.

The new system has enabled unified management of corporate compliance,1 healthcare compliance2 and regulatory compliance,3 which had been handled separately. To promote the new system in frontline operations, I personally visited our overseas subsidiaries to talk about it with employees and exchange ideas, and I think our message was well received. We will continue such activities as we go forward.

Considering Strategies from a Long-Term Perspective

In the long term, advances in artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies are likely to have a significant impact. In the medium term, it is important that we adopt these technologies to create added value, and in the long term we must also consider using them as tools to address outstanding social issues and deal with those that newly emerge. Cooperation with companies from other industries will be a key management priority in such initiatives, and we will work to enhance such collaborative efforts to generate further innovation.

To achieve sustainable long-term growth under these conditions, we must more clearly define the issues we should help to address and the value we offer, and act more strategically. Accordingly, in tandem with the formulation of the next mid-term business plan in 2018, we will also consider establishing a long-term vision and targets for non-financial aspects of our business after analyzing the social environment and identifying the value that we can contribute.

Corporate Value through Economic Performance, Social Awareness and Human Development

Underlying Chugai's approach to value creation that I have outlined is the consistent and firm belief that our corporate value is a comprehensive product of our economic performance, social awareness and human development, and that it is important to fuse these three elements on a higher plane. Ten years have passed since we established our CSR policy and started managing CSR action plans and their progress. Initially, many employees viewed CSR and business as separate endeavors, but through continued proactive communication within the Company, and diligent efforts by managers at every level to link our concept of economic performance, social awareness and human development to daily business activities and apply it in each job, I am proud to say that the concept has taken root.

Our vision for value creation is now widely shared. In my view, there is no better foundation for corporate growth and development. Through innovation, Chugai will continue to advance value creation that benefits the medical community and patients around the world. We appreciate your ongoing support.