Founding of “Sankyo Shoten”: Import and sales of adrenaline and other products leading to rapid growth
In December 1898, Mr. Shiobara and Dr. Takamine signed a consignment contract followed by the founding of an anonymous joint stock company “Sankyo Shoten” (Sankyo Store) in Yokohama by Mr. Shiobara, Mr. Nishimura, and their friend Mr. Genjiro Fukui. Since the company was founded by three people, the name “Sankyo” was selected, with the two characters that make it up meaning “three” and “cooperation”.
Sankyo Shoten’s first business was bottling imported Taka-Diastase and selling it to a pharmacy located at the central part of Tokyo. At that time, importing and selling medicines backed by academic research was an epoch-making event in Japan, where only the production and sales of easy-to-make galenical preparations were predominant—galenical preparations are a general term for medical agents using active ingredients extracted from crude drugs.
Owing to Mr. Shiobara’s steady efforts, the company proceeded as expected and began operations in Tokyo three years later. It had licensed resellers not only Tokyo and its suburb but also Kyoto, Osaka and its suburb, further expanding their sales channels.
In 1900, Mr. Shiobara learned that Dr. Takamine had succeeded in extracting adrenaline and asked him to entrust the sale of adrenaline in Japan exclusively to Sankyo Shoten. Two years later, when Dr. Takamine and his wife Caroline visited Japan, Mr. Shiobara greeted them in Kobe and negotiated personally with Dr. Takamine. Since Dr. Takamine highly appreciated Mr. Shiobara’s personality and record, they quickly concluded a contract. Subsequently, adrenaline was widely used in Japan as a medicine to stop bleeding and increase blood pressure.
As Sankyo Shoten was selected as the sole licensed reseller in Japan for Parke-Davis (now Pfizer), which sold adrenaline in the United States, the number of drugs sold by Sankyo Shoten increased and the company’s Yokohama store soon became too small to accommodate the growing product lines. A new store, “Sankyo Shoten Yakuhin-bu (drug division),” was opened in Nihonbashi district of Tokyo, which was close to the current Daiichi Sankyo’s headquarters.
Mr. Shiobara continued to be directly involved in the business, focusing his efforts on advertising activities. He personally wrote copy for product advertisements as well as simultaneously created and distributed a quarterly journal with advertisements for patient enrollment in clinical trials. Through these efforts, his company further won the trust of doctors and patients.
Going beyond the import and sale business to embark on a pharmaceutical manufacturing business
Later on, Mr. Shiobara visited the United States, attending a medical convention and visiting a Parke-Davis plant, where he strengthened the relationship with the company. Before returning to Japan, he also visited various European countries to broaden his knowledge, deciding to go beyond the import and sales business and begin a pharmaceutical manufacturing business. In 1905, he built a plant in the Nihonbashi district, approximately 10 minutes from the company’s Tokyo store. He embarked on the manufacture of one new medicine after another, such as “Glyconal,” a nutritional supplement, and “Lactostase,” a lactobacillus preparation, succeeding with all of them.
Through these myriad activities, the company accumulated experience as a pharmaceutical company, eventually changing its name from Sankyo Shoten to Sankyo Co., Ltd., in 1913. Many years later, Mr. Shiobara’s passion and enthusiasm to deliver good medicines to patients were passed down and inherited by the Daiichi Sankyo Group of companies.