Overview
- Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested Dr. Zenhiro Matsubara, 53, on suspicion of taking about ¥700,000 in bribes embedded in two ¥400,000 transfers in September 2021 and January 2023 from medical device maker Nihon M.D.M.
- Investigators report the company’s sales office set donation amounts after checking competitors’ contributions to the hospital to help promote its femoral implant.
- Sales outreach began in spring 2019, Matsubara applied to register the implant in September 2019, it was approved in November 2019, and the first ¥400,000 donation followed in March 2020 alongside entertainment.
- Former employee Takayuki Suzuki, 41, is suspected of delivering the 2023 payment, and a junior colleague is under voluntary questioning on a bribery allegation.
- Police say Matsubara received about ¥3 million in scholarship donations from five firms between 2016 and 2023 and is suspected of diverting at least ¥1.5 million for personal use, prompting calls for stronger university conflict-of-interest controls.