The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2026 chemistry prize to French chemist Henri Kagan and Japanese chemist Kenso Soai for asymmetric synthesis used in drug manufacturing.
Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for work on asymmetric mirror-image molecules, Reuters reported from Stockholm. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the discoveries matter for chemists who design reactions used to manufacture pharmaceuticals.
Soai, 76, is Japanese. Kagan, 95, is French and a professor emeritus at Universite Paris-Sud. Their work built on a problem identified by 19th-century chemist Louis Pasteur: molecules can exist as mirror images that are not interchangeable, and those forms can have different effects in the body.
Soai told the Nobel press conference it was the most exciting day of his life and that he was glad to share the prize with Kagan. He said he had been out grocery shopping when he received the news. The New York Times reported he spoke from Tokyo after the ceremony.
The prize follows this week's medicine and physics announcements. It is an award for past research, not a new laboratory result released on Wednesday.
People Sentiments Positive
- Kenso Soai said this is the most exciting day of his life and that he was glad to share the prize with Henri Kagan.
- Peter Somfai of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry said one mirror-image form of a drug can have a different effect from the other.