is a Japanese company based in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

. The company is mainly involved in the production of beverages, food, printing and medical supplies.

Divisions

Takara Shuzo

Co. produces

sake Sake, , or saki, also referred to as Japanese rice wine, is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indeed any East Asi ...

, other beverages, and seasonings. This division comprises the original business; the holding company including it was formed in 2001. Takara Shuzo also owns the Tomatin distillery of Highland

single malt scotch whisky Single malt Scotch refers to single malt whisky made in Scotland. To qualify for this category, a whisky must have been distilled at a single distillery using a pot still distillation process and made from a mash of malted barley. Therefore, a si ...

. Takara Shuzo Co. is the largest distiller of traditional shochu liquor in Japan.

Takara Bio

Clontech Laboratories was acquired from BD Biosciences in 2005. In 2007, Clontech was involved in litigation with

Invitrogen Invitrogen is one of several brands under the Thermo Fisher Scientific corporation. The product line includes various subbrands of biotechnology products, such as machines and consumables for polymerase chain reaction, reverse transcription, ...

over patents for

RNase H Ribonuclease H (abbreviated RNase H or RNH) is a family of non-nucleotide sequence, sequence-specific endonuclease enzymes that catalysis, catalyze the cleavage of RNA in an RNA/DNA substrate (chemistry), substrate via a hydrolysis, hydrolytic c ...

minus

reverse transcriptase A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to convert RNA genome to DNA, a process termed reverse transcription. Reverse transcriptases are used by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B to replicate their genomes, by retrotransposon mobi ...

. Subsidiaries of Takara Bio Inc. include Takara Bio USA (formerly Clontech Laboratories), a

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...

-based manufacturer of kits, reagents, instruments, and services for biological research, as well as regional subsidiaries in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

, China, and India. The main offices of Takara Bio USA moved to San Jose in August 2021.

References

Alcoholic drink companies Japanese brands Sake breweries Drink companies of Japan Multinational companies headquartered in Japan Manufacturing companies based in Kyoto Holding companies established in 1925 Japanese companies established in 1925 Biotechnology companies of Japan Conglomerate companies established in 1925 Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Companies in the Nikkei 225 {{Japan-company-stub