Affiliated Companies

SPERA PHARMA is one of the leading integrated CMC R&D contractors in Japan, providing high-level CMC solutions at every stage from R&D to commercialization.
According to customers’ needs, SPERA PHARMA flexibly provides a wide range of services, including process development and manufacturing of drug substances, drug development and manufacturing of investigational drugs, and development of various analytical methods and quality testing.
These services are delivered based on the advanced technological skills, drug development know-how, and rich experience and achievements of SPERA PHARMA’s researchers and technicians who have experience working for major pharmaceutical companies.

(CMC: Chemistry, Manufacturing and Control)

As a company with a procurement platform that broadly covers the upstream needs of the pharmaceutical industry, SPERA NEXUS manufactures generic drug substances as in-house products, as well as APIs and intermediates for new drugs, developed products, and chemical products on contract. Its GMP-compliant facilities with a production capacity of 10 to 10,000 L turn out high-quality, cost-effective products.
In addition to our own products, SPERA NEXUS offers a wide range of other products made in and outside of Japan; including APIs, raw materials, intermediates, and additives; to our customers.

IWAKI SEIYAKU SAKURA FACTORY is a contract pharmaceutical manufacturing company that was established in Sakura, Chiba Prefecture in July 2020.
Sakura is historically known for Dutch Western studies alongside Nagasaki, its western Japan counterpart.
Available dosage forms include injectable, solid, topical formulations.
The factory has the production capacity and techniques for contract manufacturing for both investigational drugs and commercial production.
The factory is also equipped with a number of analytical instruments, which enables IWAKI SEIYAKU SAKURA FACTORY to serve customers’ various analytical needs.
As a major pharmaceutical manufacturing plant within the Group, IWAKI SEIYAKU SAKURA FACTORY will continue to improve its facilities, technologies, and quality.

Since its establishment in 2005, JITSUBO Co., Ltd., as an R&D enterprise specializing in peptide pharmaceuticals, has engaged in the research and development of its original peptide synthesis technology,Molecular HivingTM.
 In addition to being a low-cost, high-quality solution, this technology features green chemistry design—a sustainability factor recently gaining momentum in Europe—and is seeing increasing adoption in the manufacturing of a broad range of peptide APIs, including everything from cosmetic products to active drug ingredients. 
With years of experience and an outstanding research team, JITSUBO develops manufacturing processes for the target peptides at customers’ requests. For commercialization, JITSUBO delivers requested peptide APIs through collaborative efforts with Switzerland’s Bachem, a world’s leading peptide API manufacturing CMO who JITSUBO has an exclusive technical cooperation partnership with.
In the field of middle-molecule pharmaceuticals, which is expected to grow in the future, JITSUBO will continue to provide environmentally-friendly processes and high-quality, low-cost peptide drug substances based on Molecular HivingTM.

IWAKI & CO., LTD. is the core company of the Astena Group and has two main functions: A B2B business; which sells OTC drugs, functional foods, imported cosmetics, food ingredients, functional food ingredients, and cosmetic ingredients, and OEM contract manufacturing, etc.; and a direct marketing business, which plans and sells mail-order cosmetics and engages in EC for various in-house products.

Through these two businesses, IWAKI will further refine its wholesale and trading company functions while continuing to explore for new value that it can offer to customers with the aim to provide “solutions to their problems” rather than “things.”Through this approach, IWAKI provides products and services that contribute to the “Health & Beauty Care (Health, beauty, and food)” of customers.

Founded in 2002 in Nihonbashi, Tokyo as the IWAKI Group’s mail-order cosmetics sales company, APROS sells Silky Cover Oil Block, currently Japan’s most popular makeup base, among its 26 skin care products and over 20 items of makeup products under its in-house brand “cellfuture” through mass media such as TV, the Web, magazines, and newspapers.

As stated in its corporate philosophy, APROS is committed to providing truly good products to people around the world, offering dreams, excitement, and happiness with a new set of values that have never been seen before, and to helping create a society filled with joy.

Maruman H&B Co., Ltd. is developing commodities such as health foods, including Placenta and Propolis, household goods, including quit-smoking products and sonic vibration toothbrushes, and its original cosmetics brand Pureal (Puréa). These products are developed based on the concept of “creating reliable, high-quality products” to realize healthy and comfortable lives for people.
Maruman H&B will continue to respond to the needs of the super-aging society and aims to be a company that continues to grow by accommodating the lifestyles of more people around the world.

AINS-LAB provides consulting and other services to customers wishing to sell overseas cosmetics and for overseas manufacturers who want to sell their products in the Japanese market. Our "cosmetics and quasi-pharmaceutical import agency" undertakes licensing work on behalf of our customers' pharmaceutical affairs and logistics departments. Other services include cosmetics/quasi-pharmaceutical analysis and advertising expression legality checks for cosmetics and quasi-pharmaceuticals. AINS-LAB offers wide ranging one-stop support for business.

Since its establishment in 1931, IWAKI SEIYAKU has been manufacturing and marketing mainly ethical drugs and OTC drugs. The company has the largest selection of skin treatment products in Japan and has a high market share.
It offers a broad range of contract services from preparation design to commercial production, and utilizing the advantages of the R&D and manufacturing divisions within the Kamata Plant, can provide integrated and consistent contract services ranging from R&D to manufacturing.
In the beauty treatment field, we develop doctor’s cosmetics based on cosmetic skin medicine.

Meltex provides high value-added surface treatment chemicals.
The company responds to customers’ requests and conducts research and development based on its own consideration of the characteristics required for the next generation.
The electronics industry is transitioning to 5G and preparing for 6G as the pace of change accelerates.
Meltex has group companies in Hong Kong, China (Tianjin and Shenzhen), Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand, and provides global services.

Tokai Meltex is an environmentally-friendly chemical manufacturing plant that manufactures, recovers, and recycles alkaline etchants. The high-quality copper sulfate produced here is highly regarded in the market, including for semiconductor applications. The company aims to increase the number of items it manufactures to meet market needs.

Meltex Asia (Thailand) is a chemical manufacturing company in Thailand owned by Meltex. The company has achieved global quality manufacturing and is gradually increasing the number of manufacturable items from a BCP perspective. Meltex Asia (Thailand) supplies chemicals not only within Thailand and to ASEAN countries, but also to China, South Korea, and Japan.

We changed the name of IWAKI RESEARCH INSTITUTE to reflect its identity as a company that proposes and operates new businesses that solve social issues, and started operating as Astena Minerva in December 2021. We will create synergies with the businesses invested in by the Noto SDGs Fund (our group company), and develop businesses centered on primary industries, energy, human resources, and education.