ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it will provide, in a one-stop manner, services in the development and sales phases from domestic market surveys to clinical trials, regulatory applications and domestic sales through Century Medical, Inc. (headquartered in Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; Toshihiko Fujioka, President & CEO; hereinafter “Century Medical”) and A2 Healthcare Corporation (headquartered in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo; Hitoshi Kamiya, President & CEO; hereinafter “A2 Healthcare”), which are ITOCHU’s subsidiaries.

Japan is among the first countries globally to enter the super-aging society and advanced medical care is in demand here. Medical devices are an important part of modern medical care and play an essential role in the prevention of disease and the treatment, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of patients. In Japan, development, clinical trials, regulatory applications, sales and other activities involving medical devices are often undertaken by different companies. This means that selling advanced medical devices domestically requires high costs and a large amount of time.

Recently, Century Medical and A2 Healthcare concluded a strategic partnership agreement, and they will address these problems by providing one-stop support for the development of medical devices. Both companies’ experience and expertise in the industry will be fully utilized in the provision of the support necessary for the domestic launch of the medical device seeds that are domestically unapproved but promising. In this way, we will support the materialization of promising technologies. By quickly introducing advanced medical devices including devices from US, Europe, Japan and other Asian countries in Japan, the healthcare industry will be able to offer more treatment options to patients and contribute to the promotion of health and the resolution of social issues in Japanese society in terms of prevention, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.

Leveraging its extensive domestic and international networks, ITOCHU has funded and cooperated with manufacturers of advanced medical devices. The basic policy in our medium-term management plan is to realize business transformation by shifting to a market-oriented perspective. These one-stop services are in line with this policy. ITOCHU, Century Medical and A2 Healthcare position medical care and healthcare as a focus area and will, through one-stop services, help establish a society where advanced medical devices are provided to patients more promptly and better medical care is provided.

(Notes in the figure)
Note 1: CMI undertakes the role of (designated) marketing approval holder, mainly for overseas medical device manufacturers.
Note 2: CMI and A2 support the creation of the necessary documents and reports in compliance with the Act on Securing Quality, Efficacy and Safety of Products Including Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices.
Note 3: CMI supports discussions with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare regarding insurance coverage and new medical remuneration classification.