I investigate methods of newly developed pharmaceutical products and synthesize impurities. I start developing a synthetic method by referring to patents.

Because technical details are not specified in patents, however, it is often difficult to proceed, as I expected, only based on these materials. My job is to simply and efficiently synthesize high-purity pharmaceutical products based on this information.

Another important task of mine is to synthesize some impurities that may be contained into final products and supply those impurities to our customers.

Naturally, I feel satisfied when I succeed in synthesizing the pharmaceutical product I target, but I also feel motivated by another factor that may sound unusual to you.

In your daily life, don’t you feel “99%” represents considerable purity? But as a pharmaceutical company, our mission is to achieve higher quality than that in our medicines. I feel great achievement when I succeed in producing spotless white crystal infinitesimally close to “100%” after improving the method based on the data we obtain through a number of mistakes, and that satisfaction is different from successful synthesis. Such accomplishments not only satisfy our customers but also increase my confidence.

I have several things I recently learned.

The first is we should be positive! It is inevitable to face many failures in R&D, but disappointment does not benefit me at all. I realize many employees in our R&D Division are able to maximize themselves without getting disappointed with failures.

The next is to be curious. In research, it is extremely important to always wonder, “what is this?” If I neglect to check small facts, I can never achieve a big success.

I also try to candidly ask others if I do not know anything since when I joined the company. As my misconceptions not only can cause troubles among my colleagues but also may lead to loss of trust, I try to proceed with my job in liaison with other related divisions in charge. In Sanyo Chemical Laboratory, we can continuously challenge for inspiring jobs and achieve self-growth.