Merck exit from Japan drug research undermines government goal

Merck & Co.'s decision to close its drug-research laboratory in Japan undermines the government's goal of attracting overseas drugmakers to boost the global share of made-in-Japan medicines, according to Kiyoshi Kurokawa, the government's policy adviser.

Merck, the third-largest U.S. drugmaker, joins Pfizer Inc. Novartis AG and GlaxoSmithKline PLC in closing Japanese research facilities in the past two years, often as they expand elsewhere in Asia, including in Singapore, Shanghai and South Korea.

The closure of the lab in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, further undermines Japan's goal of developing one-quarter of the world's new medicines, almost double its current share. Other parts of Asia are luring research and development spending with lower costs and English-speaking, more international staff.

"You need diversity in R&D," Kurokawa, a special adviser to the Cabinet , said Sunday. "Japanese people are less interested in moving overseas and don't have a culture of accepting people returning from overseas. There's no mobility of human resources."