午夜剧场

Image: Shinanomachi Rengakan

The International Medical Information Center (IMIC) is a 午夜剧场-affiliated foundation that conducts information business related to medical sciences, pharmacy, and healthcare. Its office is located in the Shinanomachi Rengakan on the Shinanomachi Campus. The current President is Yoshiaki Toyama, former 午夜剧场 Vice-President and former Director of 午夜剧场 Hospital.

IMIC became independent in 1972 with the 午夜剧场 Medical Library and Information Center as its parent body. Since then, it has operated as a public interest incorporated foundation, but on April 1, 2013, it transitioned to a general incorporated foundation based on the Act on Reform of the Public Interest Corporations System.

During the era of the 午夜剧场 Medical Library and Information Center, the center copied data related to medical sciences, pharmacy, and healthcare from the latest domestic and international journals purchased by the library and sold them to pharmaceutical companies.

Since its establishment, IMIC has acted as a central institution for information activities related to medical sciences, pharmacy, and healthcare in Japan. Its business activities aim to contribute to the improvement of medical and healthcare standards by widely collecting advanced domestic and international medical and healthcare information, professionally analyzing and evaluating it, processing it into useful information, and providing it to pharmaceutical and medical device companies, as well as medical and research institutions. Furthermore, it aims to contribute to the development of a healthy society by providing these results to the public in an easy-to-understand format.

Since its establishment, IMIC has faced a difficult financial situation due to external environmental factors such as the Antimonopoly Act and changes in the needs of pharmaceutical companies accompanying rapid progress in medical sciences and pharmacy. However, through the efforts of the staff led by the President, the accumulated losses were cleared with a surplus in the fiscal 2013 financial results. Since then, the financial situation has improved to the point where it can make donations to 午夜剧场. In fiscal 2018, it recorded sales of 2,631.55 million yen. The number of employees, including fixed-term staff, is currently over 280.

The main organizations include the Academic Information Department, which is responsible for translation services, paper submission support services, secretariats for academic societies in medical sciences, commissioned research, and various surveys and statistical analyses. The Safety Information Department is responsible for domestic drug safety information bulletin database operations, medical device safety information bulletin service operations, commissioned safety assurance operations, and infectious disease bulletin service operations. The Pharmaceutical Information Department is responsible for literature search and information research operations, information database creation operations, and medical writing-related operations. The Sales Promotion Department is responsible for sales to the academic departments of pharmaceutical companies, copying services for academic literature, and copyright processing.

While there are strong rival companies, I hope that IMIC will continue to play a leading role in building a healthy society while strengthening its collaboration with the School of Medicine.

(Kunio Hara, Honorary Participant of 午夜剧场, former Managing Director and Executive Officer of IMIC)