Toyo Kohan Seeks New Core Businesses for Next 10-Year Growth

Toyo Kohan plans to launch three new strategic businesses for the next growth 10 years after. Mr. Atsuo Tanaka, president of Toyo Kohan, explained at a press conference held in Tokyo on Tuesday the tries to enhance Chinese business while the firm seeks new business models in other countries. Secondly, the firm expects for sales contribution of the bio chip business in late 2012 or early 2013. The firm projects to start a knowledge-intensive business which doesn’t need large scale capital expenditure.

In China, Toyo Kohan has already operated local companies and joint venture businesses such for steel sheet processing or trading. Toyo Kohan is seeking next overseas steps in other several countries when Chinese market has gradually matured. The company is likely to start the sales of existent products as the first step and evaluate possibilities for new joint venture businesses.

As for the bio chip business, the product is used to test side effects of anticancer drugs. A DNA chip is fixed on a 3-millimeter angle silicon substrate. Toyo Kohan has developed DNA chip in cooperation with Yamaguchi University. The silicon substrate is coated by diamond-like-carbon and chemically processed by Toyo Kohan’s surface treating technology.

Toyo Kohan’s technical staff explained the bio chip can shorten the test time to one minute from conventional one hour. The unit price would be several thousand yen, one-fourth or one-fifth of the conventional test kits. Toyo Kohan will start commercial sales of the product in cooperation with the test kit distributors. The product is expected to be permitted by the regulators within a year. Toyo Kohan expects the product’s operating profit rate to sales could maintain 60-70% for first 4-5 years and 30-40% 10-15 years after.