ITOCHU Corporation announces its acquisition of 41% of the outstanding shares of Medical Collective Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “MCI”; headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; president: Takenobu Senda), a company providing marketing assistance to pharmaceutical companies, thereby making full-scale entry into the pharmaceutical marketing assistance business. ITOCHU Corporation acquired MCI's stock on October 17 through stock transfer from existing stockholders and through issuance of new shares through private placement. As the largest stockholder of MCI, ITOCHU will assist the company in further improving its business performance.

MCI has been committed to customized marketing assistance for pharmaceutical companies, designing marketing strategies by sharing individual clients' goals. More than 80% of the 69 pharmaceutical companies belonging to the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA) are clients of MCI. The two main businesses of MCI are:

1) Marketing Research

MCI has a panel of 24,000 research physicians ^(*1), among the largest in Japan, providing research services on a wide range of therapeutics areas and in different product life-cycle stages for pharmaceutical and health care companies. Using the internet, MCI provides prompt, high-quality research services.

2) Sales Promotion Assistance

MCI manages each unique, membership-based website for pharmaceutical clients, which seek to improve their sales productivity by bolstering the information services they can provide to medical doctors via the website. With strength in the know-how to vitalize the clients' sales activities and in content planning and production, MCI provides detailed services in response to assorted customer needs.

Through the acquisition of MCI stock, ITOCHU will assist the company in a wide range of corporate management including strategy, sales and administration, for MCI to develop into a leading pharmaceutical marketing assistance company. ITOCHU will also actively promote collaborations with its group companies in the life-care field to provide differentiated services with high added value.

ITOCHU Corporation entered the field of drug development assistance in April 2005 by making a mid-sized CRO ^(*2), ACRONET (headquarters: Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo), its subsidiary. In July 2006, ITOCHU entered the medical checkup assistance services field by founding the Wellness Communications Corporation (headquarters: Koto-ku, Tokyo), which provides medical-checkup reservation services and distribution of health care tools via the internet. In April 2008, ITOCHU entered the pharmaceutical sales and marketing assistance field by establishing a CSO ^(*3) business at IML Corporation (headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) providing assistance in PET ^(*4) diagnoses. With this investment in MCI, ITOCHU has built a full-scale outsourcing service for pharmaceutical and health care companies. ITOCHU targets 20 billion yen in sales from pharmaceutical and medical checkup services over the coming three years.

• *1 research physicians: physicians who have agreed to join the medical research
• *2 CRO: Contract Research Organization
• *3 CSO: Contract Sales Organization
• *4 PET: Positron Emission Tomography

• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004