Meet 5 Japanese Healthcare Startups Making a Difference
We’ve taken a look at university-affiliated startups in one of our Innovators in Japan article, and in that, we noted that the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) categorizes university-affiliated startups in to the following five categories:
- Startups as a result of academic research
- Startups as a result of joint research and development between entrepreneurs and a university within five years of founding
- Startups as a result of transferring academic research and development know-how and licensing within five years of founding
- Startups founded by students with deep ties to each university
- Startups with funding from a university, or otherwise have deep ties to a university
Beyond Next Ventures, a Japanese venture capital firm focused on medical and life sciences, as well as robotics and materials sciences startups, published a list of public companies that had spun out of academic institutions. They focused on the first three METI categories (those with strong academic / research ties to universities) for the article, and while there were over 2000 university / academia-related startups in the sample, 24 of them, or 1.2%, had made it to IPO.
What’s amazing about these companies, however, is the hard problems they’re tackling. These aren’t your typical Silicon Valley get-rich-quick apps that venture capitalists seem to be pouring growing sums of capital each quarter, but projects with long-term value supported by technical moats (technical as in years of academic research) that are simply too hard to compete with if you’re a new entrant. We’d like to take a brief look at just the first five listed on the article.
…while there were over 2000 university / academia-related startups in the sample, 24 of them, or 1.2%, had made it to IPO.
Cyberdyne
Founded: 2004
Founder: Dr. Yoshiyuki Sankai
IPO Year: 2014
Cyberdyne is a robotic limb developer originally based at the University of Tsukuba. Their flagship product line, HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb), is essentially an exoskeleton suit for various body parts that help “improve, augment, enhance, and regenerate body functions” by picking up brainwaves to operate these limbs.
OncoTherapy Science
Founded: 2001
Founder: Dr. Yusuke Nakamura
IPO Year: 2003
OncoTherapy Sciences is a genetic research lab and pharmaceutical company searching for better methods to battle cancer. The company was founded by Dr. Yusuke Nakamura, a renowned geneticist in his field formerly of the University of Tokyo. They aim to create medicine that lowers the amount of damage incurred by healthy cells while attacking cancerous cells.
Tella
Founded: 2004
Founder: Dr. Yuichiro Yazaki
IPO Year: 2009
Dr. Yazaki had resigned his position as a surgeon to pursue research on dendritic cells which research has found to be key to increasing the human immune system. Tella, an immunotherapy startup, is creating vaccines to augment the power of these dendritic cells, and pin-point cells emitting signs of being cancerous.
Human Metabolome Technologies
Founded: 2003
Founder: Drs. Masaru Tomita and Tomoyoshi Soga
IPO Year: 2013
Metabolites, substances that affect your metabolism, fluctuate based on external stimuli and any illness an organism is experiencing. Human Metabolome Technologies is a medical services lab helping research firms and pharmaceutical companies analyze changes in metabolites through a novel method they call Capillary Electrophoresis Mass Spectrometry.
PeptiDream
Founded: 2006
Founder: Dr. Hiroaki Suga and Ki’ichi Kubota
IPO Year: 2013
PeptiDream is the developer of their proprietary Peptide Discovery Platform System (PDPS), a solution to finding ways to better administer medicine through non-oral methods. Using what are known as peptide drug conjugates, doctors can pin-point the area of drug delivery, and PeptiDream’s platform allows pharmaceutical companies around the world to discover and augment variations of peptides depending on their desired use.
Others
Here are a few other portals / lists through which you can gather more information on a wider variety of Japanese healthcare companies.
