<Discover Nordic Health Tech: Welcome to our first Digital Health Tech Pitch Event!>
On November 18th, Nordic Innovation House Tokyo (NIH-TYO) held a virtual pitch event showcasing 4 Nordic digital health tech startups and scale up companies in collaboration with Shonan ipark and Takeda Nordic Innovation Hub. Health Tech is one of Nordic’s strong fields seeking expansion to the Japanese market, and we were excited to hold our first relevant public event. We had a total of 57 registrations, mainly those from the Japanese medical industry.
<Summary of the Event>
The event kicked off with brief opening greetings from Shonan iPark, Takeda Nordic Innovation Hub, and Nordic Innovation House Tokyo.
Toshio Fujimoto, General Manager of Shonan iPark: “Shonan iPark is a place for innovation. Tenants vary from pharma, medical device and IT companies, to universities, venture capitalists, and local government offices. Since the opening 2 years ago, we have seen the power of co-location. We are happy to collaborate with NIH-TYO and Takeda Nordic Innovation Hub for this event, and I hope to see new collaborations coming out from this event.”
Sanna Venetvaara, Takeda Nordic Innovation Hub: “Takeda is a global pharmacy company from Japan. Our philosophy is to always put patients in the center. Takeda Nordic Innovation Hub was established about a year ago to scale innovation upwards globally. We are not looking only towards the Nordics but working for other Takeda communities worldwide, with both internal and external stakeholders.”
Niklas Karvonen, Community Director of NIH-TYO: “NIH-TYO is a Pan Nordic project led by the 5 Nordic trade promoting organization in Tokyo. The first NIH started in Silicon Valley in 2013, from there it expanded to NY, HK, Singapore, and now in Tokyo which started in May 2020. We believe that Nordic companies have strength in areas Japan is looking for innovations and solutions, and digital health tech is among one of them.”
After the greetings, 4 pitching Nordic companies came to the stage in the following order:
1. SCellex Paivi Saavalainen, CEO
“SCellex products outperforms existing single cell platforms competitors by both quality and costs. The market size is 2 billion USD and is growing by 17% annually. We are a part of Cancer IO, a project led by Business Finland. We are here for piloting opportunities in Japan, customers, and technical partners for example manufacturing chips. ”
Q: What kind of cancer are you targeting?
A: Breast and Kidney.
Q: How do you see application of your technology in neuro immunology?
A: Single cell studies have been done a lot in brain research, and basically our method works for any tissue so definitely there are ways to apply it.
Q: Do you have a distributor in Japan?
A: No, still focusing on piloting and localizing. But will be very pleased to find one.
2. Stardots Daniel Petrini, CEO and co-founder
“Stardots offers a digital health platform for Parkinson’s disease, standing on a vision for an equal, optimized and cost reducing care. We are working closely with Uppsala University and Uppsala University Hospital. Our solution is to offer a cloud based digital platform based on mathematical modeling and AI analysis. Our business model is license based. It is flexible and scalable. We are here today to seek for additional investment ($1–2 M), partnership and collaboration, and opportunities for clinical test sites. ”
Q: Can your service slow the progression of the disease?
A: No, but we can provide a better quality of life to Parkinson’s patients.
Q: Can you address other indications in your Neuroscience? Do you have any plans or you just focus on Parkinson?
A: We focus on Parkinson but on our timeline we are thinking about expanding to Alzheimer and we have a strong indication in our mathematical modelling that it will work. But we are starting from Parkinson. We have much more data on Parkinson.
Q: Are you talking about biomarkers or digital markers or both?
A: We are talking about the digital markers from patterns of how the patient physically moves, eye movements, ability to write on keyboards, etc. We don’t take any blood samples etc.
Q: What kind of feedback have you received so far from the markers (in the previous question)?
A: Pretty good feedback. We have taken a lot of datas from keen to severe patients, and it is corresponding well with the patients and the healthcare providers.
3. Finnadvance Prateek Singh, CEO
“Finnadvance was founded in 2018 by one person, now we have 3 research sites with 10 people. We provide microfluidic organ-on-chips for pharmaceutical drug R&D. We would like to find partners in Japan. We can offer rapid development of organotypic assays and customized organ-on-chips. ”
Q: What is the special feature about your technology among many organ-on-a-chip models?
A: We are platform independent, no pumping systems nor tubing connecting, and are ready to use.
Q: Where are you commercially? Are you still in R&D or in the market?
A: For bone-on-chip we are still doing quite a lot of R&D, but for muscular and blood brain barrier, it is already in the market.
Q: Please elaborate a little bit more on your business and revenue model.
A: We start with a feasibility study and create a customized platform for the client. Then comes the pilot study which will take 3–6 months. When it is completed we will license the package to the client.
4. Cellink Tomoko Bylund, Sales Director
“Cellink was established in 2016, first as a bioink company. Then entered the bioprint business, and now little less than 5 years we are expanding as a global life science company. We aim to change the future of medicine by bioprint technology. Our bioprint technology can improve pharmaceutical workflows, both time-wise and cost-wise. We launched an office in Japan this year and now we are looking for more collaborations and partnerships.”
Q:How long do you provide support if we purchase your product?
A: If clients sign up for our service package, they will have scientific and engineering support. We value long term collaboration with clients.
Q: What are the functions of your typical customers? R&D, pharma, academic?
A: R&D in cancer research is a growing trend.
Q: What is the strength of your bioprinting compared to organ-on-a-chip or organoids?
A: It is the flexibility that our technology has, that it can be made in any shape as you wish to. Versatile and flexibility is our strength.
Q: Are you looking for more funding?
A: Yes we are looking for funding to enable us to grow even further.
<Closing Remarks>
The event was wrapped up with information about steps to take for further discussions with the pitching companies. Thank you for your participation, and hope to see you again at our future events.
Please visit here for a Japanese version of this report.
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。
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 🗼
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