KYOTO Kyodo Kyodo - JCR Pharmaceuticals Co. donated company shares worth about 1.9 billion yen $14 million to Kyoto University in the first share donation by an enterprise to a public university in Japan, the two entities said Monday.
The 1 million shares would yield around 20 million yen annually in dividends and will be used to support two university-related funds, the Cancer Immunotherapy Research Fund and the Tasuku Honjo Yuh-shi Fund.
The university acquired the shares from the Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture-based drugmaker in September.
As a long term source of research funds, universities can benefit from donations in the form of shares.
As elsewhere in Japan there is a growing network of support for university research from the private sector, said Tasuku Honjo, a Kyoto University professor. Honjo won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research that led to the development of the cancer treatment drug Opdivo, which is manufactured and sold by Osaka-based Ono Pharmaceutical Co.