My word. Will biotech venture thrive in the new climate in Japan?

Abstract

I recently kicked off a biotech venture company in Japan. This is something unusual to see here, as there are few university-based start-up companies in this country.According to one statistic, the number of biotech venture companies in Japan is now around 60, very many fewer than in the US which has around 1,700. Only ten new companies started last year and most of them were backed by established parent companies with the encouragement of the Japanese government. Indeed the Ministry of International Trade and Industry wants to help launch 1,000 biotech ventures and to create 80,000 new jobs by 2010. There is a craving for biotech ventures but who is going to take up the challenge?After finishing a post-doc in the US, I came back to Japan and became an assistant professor in a national university. I carried out my research with graduate students and post-docs, having support from my boss and lots of collaborators. I was a government employee in a tenured position, secure until the retirement age of 60 to 65. The general attitude was: “Don't get off the track, develop your career along this line, change your position only when promoted to a better one in academia.” The salary was low but with the compensation of generous pension benefits. The retirement benefit rises simply by the number of years you serve: this also discourages any job change. Nobody sees any merit in taking risks to take a new job outside of academia. So when I disclosed my plan to move, my friends advised me to think twice: some of them thought I was giving up research.The ‘venture’ I first joined was a half-government and half-privately owned company. Both sectors decided to jointly sponsor the new company for a fixed period of seven years. I was recruited as a group leader and managed a research group that eventually grew to 20 members, including scientists, technicians, post-docs and graduate students. The annual budget was much higher than that available in university. The package was quite good apart from my salary, which was kept more or less at the government rate. The majority of the people were dispatched from the sponsoring, parent companies.When I disclosed my plan to move, my friends advised me to think twice: some of them thought I was giving up researchThe mixture of scientists from different backgrounds of academia and industry was interesting and exciting, and gave me lots of experience. I especially appreciated the opportunity to work with many talented young scientists and to collaborate with industrial colleagues at the leading edge of biotechnology. During that time two of my previous colleagues switched careers to run new biotech businesses. So indeed, the government venture did work as an incubator, as the sponsors had hoped.With two more years for the company to go, I then contemplated starting a real venture biotech company. Fortunately, I met a co-founder and a Japanese venture-capital firm that would fund and support a biotech company from the start-up phase. Ours was only the second case in the biotech field that the company had backed. Discussions with the members, advisors, consultants, patent attorneys, lawyers and other people in the business field were different and enlightening. I knew that I was entering a new learning phase. Drawing a business plan was very interesting, and we gradually became confident of our scheme for developing the business. Now the company is set up, lab and office under construction, pre-marketing on the way and new employees are being recruited. A reassuring sign was that our opening job advertisements led to many applicants, including medical doctors interested in venture business after having experience in clinical practice. This never happened in Japan until a few years ago.A number of factors seem to be changing in Japan. The government plans to turn the national universities into independent administrative institutions. This is deregulation from the central authority that enables them to be more independent in their own management and decision-making. It is expected to enhance the flexibility and fluidity of their organisational structures.As for the initial movements along this path, professors at national universities can now take subsidiary business roles in private companies (to become a board member, for example) which has long been forbidden by the national civil law. Also, technology licensing offices have been established so that intellectual property created in the universities can properly be transferred to industry. We are looking forward to using this new emerging environment.I would surely like to see more newcomers in this field especially from academia. Then we might be able to see an era in which biotech ventures play a significant role in research, business and the economy of Japan.