OSAKA (Kyodo) Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. said Wednesday it will set up one of Japan's largest drug research laboratories, in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, by the end of March 2011.
The new facility, likely to have some 1,000 researchers, will be set up with an investment cost estimated at 70 billion yen to 80 billion yen.
Osaka and Kanagawa prefectures had been competing fiercely to host the new lab. Kanagawa offered as much as 8 billion yen in subsidies.
Osaka, where Takeda is headquartered, presented an offer of 20 billion yen as an incentive for building the lab in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, where a good number of biotechnology firms are located.
But the major drug maker decided on Fujisawa in hopes of putting its former plant site there to productive use, Takeda officials said.