From the dispensary to the strategy office

Mandate

Position the company as Japan's generic industry consolidates, without committing more plant or quality capacity than exists.

Outcomes

• Accepted nine of 23 requested product transfers, with ¥240 million of customer-funded validation
• Replaced a proposed ten-year exclusive contract with a five-year agreement for 31 products
• Licensed an orally dissolving film technology for manufacture, with a ¥1.6 billion line part-funded by a customer
• Revenue rose from ¥31.2 billion to ¥38.6 billion between the years ended March 2021 and March 2026

Decisions in context

I was appointed chief strategy officer as the generic shortage made our capacity the subject of daily calls from customers. The role was new; strategy had previously been a planning exercise attached to the budget. I built a small team that prepares the board's annual strategy discussion, evaluates partnerships and acquisitions, and owns the criteria we apply to customer commitments. As an executive officer I am not a director, so I present proposals rather than vote on them. Most of my work is assembling evidence from quality assurance, finance and the plants into recommendations that state what we decline as clearly as what we pursue. The period has included the transfers of 2021, the Kurenaigawa negotiation and the film licence, as well as an annual range review that has ended our role in 37 products.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; seeking one outside directorship with the president's approval.

Mandate

Broaden the customer base beyond three dominant customers and make technology transfer predictable.

Outcomes

• Reduced the three largest customers' share of revenue from 52% to 41%
• Completed 46 technology transfers against a standard timeline agreed with quality assurance
• Supported due diligence on the 2018 purchase of the Ishikawa plant

Decisions in context

When I arrived, three customers provided over half of Tateyukari's revenue, and each technology transfer was negotiated as though it were the first. My team wrote a standard transfer timeline with quality assurance, so customers heard the same realistic duration from sales and from the plant. We pursued mid-size generic makers and two established-brand owners who wanted to stop manufacturing older products themselves. In 2018 I supported due diligence on buying a plant in Ishikawa from a pharmaceutical company leaving manufacturing, examining its customer contracts and the staff who would transfer with it. I reported to the director responsible for sales and attended board meetings when transfers or the acquisition were discussed. The work gave me a detailed sense of what our plants could absorb, which became the basis of my later recommendations on capacity.

Reason for the move

Appointed chief strategy officer when the president created the role in 2021.

Mandate

Make the division's ingredient sourcing and its stakes in generic manufacturers more resilient and better understood.

Outcomes

• Added second sources in India for four ingredients previously bought from one Chinese supplier
• Recommended selling one minority stake before its customer concentration deepened; sold in 2015
• Built the division's first supplier-risk register

Decisions in context

The trading company bought active ingredients abroad for Japanese manufacturers and owned minority stakes in two generic companies. I moved there to understand the parts of the industry I had only seen from a plant. My team managed import contracts and monitored the two investments. I learnt how a single overseas ingredient supplier could hold an entire product range hostage, and we added Indian sources for four materials that had depended on one supplier. I also learnt how an investor reads a manufacturer. One of our investee companies had come to rely on a single customer for most of its volume, and I recommended selling the stake while buyers still valued it; the division sold in 2015. That lesson about concentration returned, from the other side, when I later assessed merged customer groups at Tateyukari.

Reason for the move

Returned to Toyama to join a contract manufacturer and to live nearer my ageing parents.

Mandate

Match the launch programme to plant capacity and retire products that no longer justified their batches.

Outcomes

• Planned 38 launches over five years against available capacity
• Recommended the withdrawal of 21 low-volume products with managed transition periods
• Reduced monthly batch changeovers by about a fifth

Decisions in context

Japan's generic market was growing, and Ikurahama's sales team wanted every new product it could register. My planners and I compared each proposed launch with the plant hours, equipment and documentation it would consume. Some launches waited a year because the plant could not absorb them, which made me unpopular with sales for a time. I also proposed the company's first structured withdrawals: 21 products whose volumes no longer justified their batch changes. Each withdrawal required notice to wholesalers, hospitals and pharmacies and a period of continued supply, and I learnt to plan those obligations before announcing anything. The work reduced changeovers by about a fifth and freed capacity for the launches that mattered most. It is where I first treated a product range as a set of commitments to patients and pharmacies rather than a catalogue.

Reason for the move

Moved to a trading company to understand ingredient supply and investment in the industry.

Mandate

Review manufacturing records and proposed changes for products released from the plant.

Outcomes

• Reviewed batch records and deviations for about 70 products
• Drafted the plant's first summary of change-control timing for supplier changes
• Supported preparation for regulatory GMP inspections

Decisions in context

I joined Ikurahama to see where the medicines missing from our dispensary list came from. As a quality assurance pharmacist I reviewed batch records and investigated deviations with production staff, under a manager who insisted that every conclusion be traceable to a document. I learnt that a change of ingredient supplier or equipment was not a purchasing decision alone. It required evidence, review and sometimes regulatory approval before use, and the time involved belonged in any commercial plan. I wrote a short summary showing how long typical changes had taken, which the production director began using when sales proposed launch dates. That summary led to my move into planning. The role gave me lasting respect for the authority of quality assurance, which I still treat as a boundary on strategy rather than an obstacle to it.

Reason for the move

Moved into supply planning after showing how change-control time affected launch dates.

Mandate

Dispense safely, advise wards and help manage the hospital formulary.

Outcomes

• Maintained the dispensary's shortage list and the alternatives offered to wards
• Prepared formulary comparisons as generic substitution increased
• Supported medication reviews for older inpatients on rehabilitation wards

Decisions in context

My first appointment was in a hospital dispensary serving acute and rehabilitation wards, many of whose patients were elderly. I dispensed, answered ward questions and helped the chief pharmacist with formulary comparisons as generic medicines began to enter our purchasing. I also kept the shortage list, which meant telephoning wholesalers, proposing alternatives and explaining them to nurses and doctors. Most shortages were brief, but each one consumed clinical time that no manufacturer's plan accounted for. Medication reviews for older inpatients taught me how often swallowing difficulties determined which formulation a patient could take, a point that returned decades later in our film licence. I left because I wanted to understand the supply side of the problems I was handling. The hospital years remain the reason I ask who bears the cost when a supply commitment fails.

Reason for the move

Joined a generic manufacturer to understand why medicines became unavailable.