Fujifilm finds new niches, record profits amid pandemic

TOKYO (AP) — Scores of Japanese manufacturers less well known than Toyota and Sony are linchpins in world supply chains and innovation.

One such company is Fujifilm. It outlived the decline of traditional photography and has logged record profits after diversifying into a wide range of businesses, from drugs and cosmetics to advanced materials, cameras and other types of imaging machines.

Leading those efforts was Shigetaka Komori, who stepped aside last month after 20 years to become an executive adviser to Fujifilm. He focused the 87-year-old company on leveraging its film making technology, boosted by strategic acquisitions, to become a leader in biopharmaceuticals.

That paid off when the pandemic struck.

“People on the outside may even wonder what Fujifilm is doing with all these businesses, but from the inside view, they are actually connected in many ways in basic technology,” Takatoshi Ishikawa, a senior executive vice president at Fujifilm, told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Fujifilm has made the most of its “analog strengths,” such as expertise in materials, he said.

Komori left on a high note. Despite a dent in sales due to the pandemic, the company reported a record 181.2 billion yen ($1.6 billion) in net profit in the fiscal year that ended in March, up 45% from a year earlier.

Fujifilm’s technology is used to make the antigen for the COVID-19 Novavax vaccine, though it has yet to be approved in Japan. It also specializes in a nanotechnology used in mRNA vaccines, such as those from Pfizer and Moderna.

The Tokyo-based company developed a PCR test for the coronavirus that delivers results in 75 minutes. Older methods require several hours. In March, it developed a detection kit for several variants of COVID-19. Meanwhile, its influenza drug...