ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that ITOCHU’s wholly owned subsidiary A2 Healthcare Corporation (headquartered in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo; Hitoshi Kamiya, President & CEO; hereinafter “A2 Healthcare”) won the Best CRO (contract research organization)^*1 award at Citeline Japan Awards 2025 sponsored by Citeline, whose goal is to provide life science professionals with specialized pharmaceutical information.

Citeline presents the Citeline Japan Awards based on an evaluation by judges consisting of professionals in the industry with the goals of celebrating excellent technical innovations and advancements in the pharmaceutical and biotechnological sectors in Japan and emphasizing the important role that Japan plays in the global healthcare market. One of the award categories is the Best CRO award. When deciding this category, the judges consider the quality and advantages of the services provided by CROs based in Asia (including Japan and Australia) and how they develop relationships with customers, and they focus particularly on subject recruiting strategies.

A2 Healthcare has been entrusted with a large number of corporate clinical trials and investigator-initiated clinical studies in various fields and diseases, possessing top-class know-how in the industry to support new drug development. Citeline Japan Awards 2025 indicate the high regard for A2 Healthcare’s past initiatives, as this was the second time the company chosen to receive the Best CRO award. It first won the award in 2023.

ITOCHU has established its The Brand-New Deal: Profit Opportunities are Shifting Downstream management policy and is developing its business areas by tracking the needs of sellers, buyers and consumers as they diversify along with the changes in society and by pioneering and transforming its businesses, beginning with its downstream operations. ITOCHU will continue to work with the operating companies under the ITOCHU umbrella to address many different problems in healthcare from a market-oriented perspective and to contribute to the development of a society where better healthcare is provided.