Health

A health ministry panel approved Wednesday the production and sale of a gene therapy for treating spinal muscular atrophy, a rare incurable disease that destroys muscle function through a decrease in motor neuron cells.

The health ministry is moving to test whether a drug designed to treat influenza also works against the new coronavirus.

Fujifilm Holdings has started to develop a reagent to use in testing patients for the novel coronavirus.

A study of several dozen elderly people suggests that eating Camembert daily may help keep dementia at bay, but not Mozzarella cheese.

A website aimed at doctors working in Japan’s rural areas is attracting much interest from medical practitioners overseas who are eager to learn the latest expertise and advancements from Japanese specialists.

Doctors in Thailand and Japan have used HIV medications to treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus with apparent success. But why did they think to test drugs made to combat one pathogen on a seemingly completely different disease?

In an unusual move, a nuclear power exhibition facility in a small town in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which has been seeing a steady decline in the number of visitors in recent years, will reopen as a medical clinic when a new doctor starts work there in April.

A Keio University research team has been given the green light to transplant heart muscle cells derived from iPS cells into patients who have experienced severe heart failure

Takara Bio is preparing to produce 50 times more of a coronavirus testing reagent at its plant in Dalian in response to an urgent request from the Chinese city, where the Japanese drugmaker's main factory is located.

An extremely thin sensor worn around the finger or arm can measure pulses and scan fingerprints and vein patterns, thereby preventing identification mix-ups among medical patients and nursing care residents, the device’s developers said.