Alfresa and three partners form biosimilar CDMO Alfenax Biologics

Four companies are setting up Alfenax Biologics, a joint venture that will make drug substance and drug product for biosimilars: the Japanese pharmaceutical distributor Alfresa Holdings, Kidswell Bio, Chiome Bioscience, and Taiwan's Mycenax Biotech (MBI). The project was selected under the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Support Program for the Establishment of Domestic Manufacturing Facilities for Biosimilars (バイオ後続品国内製造施設整備支援事業), the English name Alfresa uses for it, and each company's board approved signing the agreement, announced on November 25, 2025.

The new company will be based in Chuo-ku, Tokyo, with capital of ¥900 million. Its business will be CDMO services and the distribution of drugs and biopharmaceuticals. The manufacturing facility is planned on the premises of Alfresa Fine Chemical.

The ownership split stands out: Alfresa Holdings 45%, MBI 45%, Kidswell Bio 7% and Chiome Bioscience 3%. The program exists to secure Japan's domestic biosimilar supply, yet a Taiwanese company sits level with the Japanese distributor as joint largest shareholder. MBI is a contract manufacturer of biologics in Taiwan, and in this structure it supplies the antibody manufacturing technology.

In other words, Japan is putting the plant and the supply network on home soil and bringing the manufacturing know-how in from outside. That is the usual shape of "domestic production" in economic security policy, because it is faster and surer than building the technology from zero. With the two largest stakes equal, decisions will need agreement between Alfresa and MBI. Some will see that as friction; others will see it as a sign that the technology is really coming in.

Biosimilars are follow-on versions of biologics whose patents have expired. Unlike small-molecule generics, they cannot be identical to the reference product, because cells never reproduce glycosylation and charge exactly. Showing comparability takes extensive analytical and clinical data, and development costs far exceed those of small-molecule generics. As a result, few companies can make them. Without manufacturing capacity at home, supply depends on a handful of overseas firms, and with contract capacity tight worldwide, the risk of that supply thinning is real. The subsidy targets that supply structure.

The announcement does not say when the plant will start, which molecules it will make or how much capacity it will have.