Born in Takaoka in 1854 as the son of a Kaga domain physician. After graduating from the Imperial College of Engineering (now the University of Tokyo Faculty of Engineering) he studied in Glasgow, Britain. Following service in the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce he emigrated to the United States and flourished as an entrepreneur. In 1894 he extracted a digestive enzyme from koji mold and commercialized it as Takadiastase, earning a fortune through a contract with the major American firm Parke-Davis. In 1900, together with Uenaka Keizō, he achieved the world's first crystallization of a hormone, adrenaline, from bovine adrenal medulla — the first hormone isolated in the twentieth century. In 1913 he announced a plan for the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken), funded from his private wealth, working to promote Japan's basic science. He also founded the Japanese Association and Nippon Club in New York, contributing to U.S.-Japan friendship. He died in New York in 1922 at 67.

A rare figure who united the scientist and the entrepreneur at the highest level. The idea of patenting research results and turning them into business was unusual among Japanese of his day, and he succeeded as an international man within American capitalism. At the same time, he kept the promotion of science in his homeland always in mind and gave it concrete form in the founding of Riken — a patriot in his own way.

Adrenaline remains indispensable today in emergency medicine, anesthesia, and the treatment of anaphylaxis, and Takamine's crystallization was the landmark that made its pharmaceutical use possible. Takadiastase is still sold in Japan as a digestive medicine under the name 'Takadia.' Riken, founded in 1917, produced many Nobel laureates after the war, including Yukawa Hideki and Tomonaga Shin'ichirō, becoming the core of Japan's scientific community — the organization in which Takamine's vision came to fruition. His birthplace in Takaoka is open to the public as a memorial.