The Samsung brand is best known for its smartphones and wide-screen TVs. Yet behind the scenes the conglomerate is also making a name as a contract manufacturer of complex medicines to treat diseases like cancer. On a piece of reclaimed land along the western coast ...

The biggest biotechnology company in Japan almost didn't get built. When Patrick C. Reid, now managing director of PeptiDream Inc., arrived in Japan about a decade ago, he found investors reluctant to put much money into drug startups — even though the country had world-class ...

Five years ago, Olympus Corp. was caught up in the oddest of corporate scandals. Its then-CEO, Michael Woodford, uncovered an accounting scandal at the company that went undetected for years, besmirching the name of a once-proud Japanese maker of digital cameras and medical equipment. The ...

Fujifilm Holdings Corp.'s new president, Kenji Sukeno, aims to make its pharmaceutical operations profitable and said the company will consider acquisitions to bolster growth in sectors where it has an existing presence. The company is targeting 20 percent operating margins in its drug operations and ...

Ten years ago, representatives from Japan's Ono Pharmaceutical Co. went from hospital to hospital, attempting to convince doctors to test a new product under development: drugs that helped the body's immune system fight cancer. But nobody would listen. Immunotherapy was another fad, they were told. ...

One balmy summer evening last year, some of the most prolific biotech and scientific minds of Boston came together. Among them was the provost of MIT, who was enjoying the saxophone music alongside a U.S. congressman and senior venture capitalists. Their hosts: a Frenchman and ...

On a cloudy morning in the Tokyo suburb of Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Yoshiyuki Sankai points excitedly to a slide of severed spinal cords. They belong to rats, and he has used cell technology to help reconnect the nerves. A multimillionaire whose robot company, Cyberdyne Inc., ...

North Korea executes officials and arbitrarily imprisons those seen as enemies of the state. Its citizens struggle to put food on the table. Yet when it comes to North Koreans kicking their cigarette habit, Kim Jong Un's government is willing to help. As countries the world ...

To catch a glimpse of the ragtag group of students going eyeball to eyeball with the Chinese government, peek inside a room on the ninth floor of the Legislative Council building in downtown Hong Kong. There, the exhausted, bleary-eyed student leaders who have brought three ...