We are highly aware of our responsibility as a pharmaceutical company dealing in medicinal drugs upon which human lives depend, and we are working to further strengthen our level of compliance to ensure that all our actions not only fully comply with all legal regulations but also are based on higher ethical standards.

In new drug research, our drug discovery activities focus on areas where we can fully benefit from the technologies and know-how we have accumulated and continue to exploit our strengths as well as on areas such as biotechnology based medicines where we can make effective use of genes we possess as our genetic assets. We are in active pursuit of the discovery and development of drugs that meet the unmet medical needs at the frontline of healthcare. The Global Discovery Research Alliance Headquarters established in our US base, Ono Pharma USA, Inc. (OPUS) in May 2008 is a powerful vehicle for promoting drug discovery alliances with bio-pharmaceutical companies in the US and Europe - plus research collaborations with universities and research institutions. Thus breakthrough drug discovery seeds and leading-edge technologies can be at our disposal to propel Ono's drug discovery research.

We are expanding our development pipeline by directing strong efforts into licensing activities including commercialization rights to new drug candidate compounds.

As for drug development, our first priority is in gaining licensing approval in Europe and the US to achieve new drug approval globally. Thus clinical development overseas is a key area of our endeavor.

For the purpose of further strengthening our global competitive position in new drug development, the Global Development Headquarters at OPUS was newly established in May 2008. Led by this US center, our international clinical development framework is ever strengthening.

Meanwhile, drug development in Japan focuses on obtaining early approval for compounds in late-stage development. We are also working on further speeding up the development speed of projects in their early development stage, filing by leveraging multinational clinical trials and global data for globally leading development programs.

The marketing division is actively working to enhance the reputation of Ono's innovative pharmaceuticals through presenting its scientific data mainly at workshops and lecture meetings and through the dissemination of high-quality information that is always backed by the latest medical knowledge, aimed at fulfilling the diversifying needs of healthcare professionals.

We envision that the NHI price revision and implementation of various healthcare cost containment policies may significantly and adversely affect our business. However, we will strive to attain stable growth by launching new products and by enhancing sales of existing products.

With top priority given to the pursuit of quality assurance of our products, the manufacturing division is placing stronger emphasis on improving both its hardware, and software and on establishing an efficient production management system.