Kiroshi Opticals and us

No. We are a separate legal entity, a public interest foundation certified by the Cabinet Office of Japan, with our own boards, staff and accounts. We own 23.8% of Kiroshi Opticals K.K., which makes us its largest shareholder. The company owns nothing of us.

In the company’s own description, it has three divisions. Medical makes intraocular lenses, retinal implants (sold as AKARI) and surgical optics. Consumer makes ocular implants for people with ordinary sight who want more of it, under the SEIRAN name, worn by about 3.1 million people. Professional Systems makes optics, implants and perception software for security, industrial and defence customers.

In the year to March 2026 the company’s revenue was ¥1.94 trillion, of which Medical contributed 22%, Consumer 47% and Professional Systems 31%. The company says the Professional Systems division does not make weapons. It makes optics that are used with them.

From our endowment. In the year to March 2026, dividends from Kiroshi Opticals were ¥19.7 billion, or 81% of the ¥24.3 billion we spent on charitable work. The rest came from the diversified part of the endowment. We take no money from the company other than as a shareholder, and no donations from anyone.

No, and the 1996 Arrangement forbids it to try. The company nominates two of our seven directors, who take no part in any decision about implants, the Implant Register, Continuity or Shared Sight. You can read their declared interests on the governance page.

Sometimes, through the hospitals and clinics we fund, which choose their own suppliers. We publish what was bought with our money, by maker, every year.

We have sold some: our holding was 34.1% in 1996, and the share of our endowment in the company has fallen from 79% to 66% since 2012. The founder’s gift and the 1996 Arrangement prevent us from going below 20% without the councillors’ approval, and the board has so far judged that a large, patient shareholder with a public interest mission is better placed to influence the company than a scattering of funds would be. That judgement is reviewed every three years. The next review is in 2027.

Medical device regulators in the twenty-three countries where it sells them. Since 2023, at our request, the company has also submitted its perception models to Frothly’s Blackwall programme for independent evaluation before release, and Blackwall publishes what it finds. Our own Independent Implant Register records harm from implants of every make, including the company’s, and reports to our board’s Audit and Risk Committee rather than to any executive. Our partnership with Frothly explains more.

Data donated through Shared Sight is held by the Chiba Centre for Visual Science and released only to research projects approved by an independent data access committee. Researchers at Kiroshi Opticals may apply on the same terms as anyone else. In FY2025, three of the 38 approved projects were from Kiroshi Opticals. The Independent Implant Register shares anonymised summaries of reported harm with every maker, and with regulators, at the same time.