JSR Corporation
JSR Corporation (Tokyo; formerly JASDAQ/TSE: 4185; now private after delisting following Japan Investment Corporation nationalization in 2023) is Japan's leading life science materials company and manufacturer of Amsphere A3 Protein A affinity resin — one of the fastest-growing Protein A resin brands. JSR's Amsphere A3 uses a novel polymer bead architecture (highly cross-linked polymethacrylate) with proprietary recombinant Protein A ligand — designed for high dynamic binding capacity and long resin lifetime. In April 2023, the Japanese government's sovereign industrial fund INCJ (Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, now JIC) acquired a majority stake in JSR Corporation and took it private — an extraordinary step justified by JSR's dual strategic importance in semiconductor photoresists (JSR is the world's #2 photoresist producer, supplying TSMC and Samsung) and bioprocess materials (Amsphere A3). Japan explicitly nationalized JSR to prevent acquisition by non-Japanese parties and to secure domestic control of critical semiconductor and bioprocess supply chains — a template for strategic industry policy that no other major economy had applied to a life science materials company.