I have been living in Japan for ten years where I spent almost studying, researching in Academia, and working in the Pharmaceutical Industry. It looks like a confusing career path!. Especially that the shift between Academia and Industry is not usually an attractive thing here but I guess I did like to take a risk for the sake of experiencing as much as possible skills that I thought they might be of aid to me in future. For that, I have always been described by my colleagues as a risk-taker, a fit for a Biomedical Venture start-up which made me think about the possibility for starting my venture, but I guess the universal question in any entrepreneur mind- especially those with R&D background- is when, where and how to start?.
Regardless of the capital fund needed for the R&D expenses and further for the development of the prototype (assuming everything goes well), in Biomedical Venture the product is extremely based on a research concept that might be in the initial step but it has the translational potential in the future. The difficult part is that you can not tell the investors that you will have a product simply in six months! it is a time, labour, and money consuming process.
Going back to our questions, what I noticed in the last ten years that the majority if not all of the Biomedical Ventures start-up in Japan seeds come from known universities based on specific research that is led by an academic personnel. The research should have been protected by patents that are usually submitted by the university or together with industrial partners (a confusing process!). Then there is the timing for the registration of the startup (which is a not difficult issue) and the lunch of the R&D plan for the product (considering that there was an investor!).
The next question is where to establish the start-up, unlike IT businesses, Biomedical Ventures need actual laboratory spaces with specific equipment that satisfy the safety work requirements. What I noticed that the majority of Biomedical Ventures rely on the university's facilities and in most cases they are located in the academic personnel own laboratory spaces. Despite that universities all over Japan do promote the concept of rental laboratory spaces on their campuses still the system is not well established and it lacks flexibility.
Let's assume that the internal structure of the venture is completed and the lunching place is found. What is next?. In the successful Biomedical Venture start-up, I found that there is a great deal of market evaluation, serious plan for products development and fundraising rather than spinning around the greatness of the discovered basic research and originating a huge PR mainly centring the person who built the research!. That means the involvement of experts or at least people with a background of marketing and management experiences. And in Biomedical Ventures that ignore this step usually can not get a safe pass. I remember once in one of the workshops in Kyoto where researchers from academia were given the chance to pitch their research. I was still working in the Pharmaceutical Industry then and I had the chance to carefully listen to their presentations. Afterwards, we had the opportunity to directly discuss their business plan and what is that they simply ask from us. Shockingly was that none of them had a firm business plan. And the only things was "we need funding support". Well, imagine you want to buy a cake from a bakery but the owner tells you:" I am not sure this cake will taste good but anyways please buy it!". Of course, if it comes to Biomedical Venture start-ups thing are more complicated but still, it is not logical to ask an established pharmaceutical company to fund your new therapeutic compound based on only preliminarily data without showing future potential as well as the addressing pros and cons and most importantly knowing your target market area. And remember that, the workflow should be based on logic and concrete data without any fantasy or misinterpretation (remember the important lesson from Theranos Elizabeth Holmes scandal). What are the potential opportunities for Biomedical Ventures in Japan?
The Japanese market is in needs for more Biomedical startups especially in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the overwhelming increase of the elderly populations ( those related to biomedical devices, drug discovery, AI, and regenerative medicine). Biomedical startups can bring up more innovative concepts to cope with the challenges in the society as well as to boost the biomedical industry. A gamble that only small startups can take compared to the mega biomedical and pharmaceutical companies that dominate these field industry in Japan. A clear recent example we can take is BioNteck where one of the most innovative COVID-19 vaccines has been developed using messenger RNA technology. Not only that, these messenger RNA vaccines are formulated into lipid nanoparticles that expedite the delivery of this vaccine. Interestingly, when I was a PhD student, our research group in Kyoto University- in addition to many other groups worldwide- was working on mRNA and plasmid DNA loaded lipid nanoparticles for gene delivery. At that time these type of formulations were considered unrealistic for clinical applications, yet here were are!; these formulations proved to be the lifesaver for the COVID 19 vaccines. Needs for talented young entrepreneurs
The evolvement in technologies and social networks has come up with a new generation that prefers to communicate differently (through Instagram or LINE rather than writing long and awfully detailed emails). A generation that despises the culture that supports the cleché such as 'The nail that sticks out shall be hammered down 出る釘は打たれる". This generation unconventionally sees things. They thrive for freedom of thinking and that what we need!. Venture startup can be the perfect fit for those people; a place that gives them the stage to grow up and glow concurrently.
A direct support for students and young researchers
That can be achieved by the initiation of grants, as well as by providing facilities to students and young researchers independently form their supervisors.There should be some sort of constructive mentoring but not BABY-SITTING.
Japan is a great platform for the innovation in science and technology. Japanese Universities produce world top class researches. Thus I hope that more Universities-based ventures will further boost the translation meaning of these researches and open more jobs for graduates. Rodi ABDALKADER Important: opinions in this articles are based on personal viewpoints and they do not represent or reflect on any formal body whether in academia or industry.
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