Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to France's Henri Kagan, Japan's Kenso Soai

Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry; Ellen Moons, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; and Peter Somfai, Member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry make the announcement for the 2026 Nobel prize winners at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, October 7, 2026. © Jonathan Nackstrand, AFP

Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for solving a 100-year-old chemical mystery, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Wednesday. Nobel Prize recipients receive a prize of 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million).

France's Henri Kagan and Japan's Kenso Soai on Wednesday won the Nobel chemistry prize for solving the mystery of why only one version of some molecules' mirror-image forms appears in nature, a discovery decisive for the development of pharmaceuticals.