Drugmaker donates ¥1.9 bil of its shares to Kyoto University

Nice to see private industry supporting higher education here!

The 1 million shares would yield around 20 million yen in dividends annually and will go toward supporting two university-related funds, Tasuku Honjo "Yuh-shi" Fund and the Cancer Immunotherapy Research Fund.

This Is WRONG, University test and research labs should be independent and free of the influence of any drug maker.

Kinda something fishy about this. A drug company giving shares to a uni that tests it drugs. Could be a possible conflict if interests. If the uni is doing research on a new drug, they have an invested interest in making sure said drug reaches the market along with the subsequent share profit boost, rather than in stage four trials, it’s a dud. Could put pressure on someone somewhere. One eye on the research and one eye on the share price is not a good combination. Reminds of docs doing research that’s funded by certain groups to get results they prefer.

Less than 1.2% dividends on a stock is rather a poor yield

Could be a possible conflict if interests.

Which is why is so important to do it openly and that it appears on the news, so research that could affect those interests (and therefore could be suspected of bias) is taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. A COI do not automatically disqualifies results, it just makes it more difficult to just trust them, in the same way the reputation of the University or the people in charge of the research can make it easier to do it.

At this point it is very common to have companies and universities working together for example by constituting consortiums, so a donation of shares is a less direct (and less problematic) way of getting the benefits of investment while making sure the scientific community is aware of this relationship.