< The 2016 All-Japan Research Team

Total appearances: 10

Team debut: 2004

At No. 3 is Hiroshi Tanaka, a Mizuho Securities Group researcher who merited a runner-up spot the past two years and records his tenth appearance on this roster since 2004. He reports on 16 domestic health care and pharmaceuticals stocks, unchanged from a year ago. Commended for his “excellent knowledge and experience” by one asset manager, Tanaka is paying close attention to pricing changes for cancer-fighting therapies and so-called orphan drugs, or treatments for rare diseases. These are the leading growth drivers in the U.S. space, which Japanese pharmaceuticals developers consider their most important, he explains, because it represents “the sole market where the companies could further increase drug prices from high price levels.” The analyst, 53, is recommending that investors favor Osaka’s Ono Pharmaceutical Co. Opdivo, an immuno-oncology drug it generated in conjunction with U.S.-based Medarex (since acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.), which is “demonstrating therapeutic effect on a broad range of carcinomas,” he advises. “I expect Opdivo can be the standard drug for cancer treatment.”