Digital Health Opportunities in Japan for Nordic Companies (June 15th, 2021, Webinar)

Japan stands as the world’s 3rd largest economy and healthcare market in the world. With a population of approximately 120 million people, of which over 30% are projected to be 60 years or older within a decade, Japan’s healthcare market will continue to grow –a projected CAGR of 4% from 2018 to 2024.

At the same time, Japan is lagging with regard to the digitalization of the healthcare market, and both the public and private sector stakeholders are actively looking for new digital solutions. The use of electronic medical records hover around 30–40% in Japan (compared to close to 100% in Nordics), and healthcare/pharmaceutical was a top-10 most funded sector by VC firms in Japan in 2019.

Innovation Norway, Business Sweden, and Nordic Innovation House Tokyo have conducted a joint Nordic study on digital health market opportunities from Japan to Nordic startups, scaleups, and growth companies. We held a webinar on June 15th to share our findings through the study and our next plans, welcoming opinion leaders from Japan, and hear about Nordic digital health companies’ stories from Japan. This is the event report.

First, we welcomed Mr. Masaru Otsuka, Head of Digital Acceleration at Takeda Pharmaceuticals to deliver a keynote speech, sharing various interesting data, facts, and insights on the Japanese Healthcare ecosystem. Some of the takeaways were: Japan’s unique universal health insurance coverage, the Ministry’s vicious moves towards deregulation in recent years to welcome new schemes and technologies to the health industry, and how obtaining approvals from US FDA or EU EMA can be an advantage to have a smooth entry to the Japanese market.

Following the keynote speech, Mr. Magnus Brondell from Business Sweden, shared the main findings of our study. The study was conducted through research and interviews with players in both the public and private sectors. Along with some key data on Japan’s aging population and lagging of digitalization, the study shows that Japanese companies are mostly interested in complementary diagnostics and digital services that can add value to their core offerings. There is also a strong interest in AI-based diagnosis and data analysis. The growth and deregulation in the telemedicine field is something to be mentioned, too; initial consultations needed to be in person until April 2020, but due to the pandemic online consultation was approved even for initial consultations, and by March 2021 approximately 15% of the healthcare providers offer online consultation.

Next, we welcomed two Nordic digital health companies in the Japanese market; Coala Life and SyntheticMR.

Coala Life CEO Mr. Dan Pitulia shared his experience collaborating with a Japanese partner, emphasizing that Japanese companies are very well prepared and know exactly what they want and how they want to do it (they will know about you and your product before you meet them), very quality conscious (you might even feel they are “picky” from Swedish criteria), and if you know the market enough, it is rather a very interesting market than a complicated one as often considered.

Mr. Yusuke Shimizu from SyntheticMR also pointed out fundamental but very important advice: know the market needs, know how business is conducted in Japan, and be well prepared that establishing a service and support team on local site is a must in Japan (vendors will not be a substitute; clients will want to talk to the manufacturer directly).

To conclude the event, our Community Director Niklas Karvonen introduced to our audience our video module on Innovation Norway’s Competence Center (free registration) to learn more about our findings and to access the full report, and about our Nordic-Japan Digital Health Hybrid Summit planned to be held later this year.

Thank you for reading, and keep tuned through our social channels (links below) for our next steps in supporting Nordic Digital Health companies to the Japanese market!

🎞 To access the recording of the event, visit HERE
📊 To access the full report, Digital Health Opportunities in Japan, visit HERE

For any inquires on our activities, please feel free to contact us at tokyo@nordicinnovationhouse.com or via our social channels (links below).

Nordic Innovation House Tokyo is a community platform accelerating high-quality Nordic startups, scale-ups, and growth companies to Japan. Via our strong community and network, we connect Nordic companies to the right ecosystem stakeholders 🗼

ノルディックイノベーションハウス東京は、北欧５カ国のスタートアップ及び成長企業の日本進出を支援する、コミュニティプラットフォームです。強力なコミュニティとネットワークを生かして、北欧企業と日本のステークホルダーを繋いでいきます。

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