In the 1960s, manual testing methods regularly took several hours to reach a diagnosis. The introduction of latex agglutination equipment and reagents reduced this to just minutes. This technology, born from the conviction that patients should not have to wait for answers, culminated in the launch of LPIA-1 in 1982. This was an industry-leading breakthrough that simultaneously achieved both precision and speed in fully automated immunoassay testing.

“Seeing the faces of patients waiting for their test results
is a driving force for us.”

Triggered by the shift in business direction that followed the 1985 Plaza Accord, PHC Group began working to integrate biotechnology and electronics. Developers spent three years on mass-production development of technology for the precise control of electrodes. “It was a never-ending series of challenges,” one developer recalled. In 1991, a portable glucose meter weighing just 50 grams was introduced, marking the advent of an era when people with diabetes could manage their own care.

“People with diabetes can measure their blood glucose at home How many lives can be saved just from this breakthrough?”

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world, our biomedical factory in Gunma, Japan, switched to 24-hour operation. The supply system was rapidly reorganized to enable worldwide delivery of -80°C freezers, critical for preserving mRNA vaccines. One Gunma worker commented that they “felt a profound sense of responsibility as a provider of critical social infrastructure.”

“The factory played a role in protecting and delivering
vaccinations around the world.”