HEALTH & WELFARE

A WORLD WITHOUTBLINDNESS:A BIO-VENTURE’S ENDURING PURSUIT
As people age, many experience eye diseases, which in the worst-case scenario can lead to blindness. Helping to reduce
this risk is a former ophthalmologist who set his sights on launching a venture into unique and unparalleled research.
His team is currently developing a glasses-type device that aims to treat and control the progression of myopia as well
as a diagnostic device for eye diseases common among astronauts. So, why is it that this eye specialist continues to takeon the challenge of curing eye diseases with his venture company?
The great inventor Thomas Edison once said,“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways thatwon’t work.” Today there are people who, like Edison,continue to strive—unafraid of failure—toward theirgoals. One of them is KUBOTA Ryo, president andchief executive officer of Kubota Pharmaceutical
Holdings Co., Ltd., who aims for a “World Without
Blindness.”
Kubota first made a name for himself as an

ophthalmology researcher. In 1997, he discovered
myocilin, one of the genes responsible for glaucoma,a major cause of acquired blindness. At that time,
genome research was becoming increasingly popular,
with a growing belief that all diseases could beunderstood and treated. Kubota, like everyone else,
believed this; having discovered the causative genefor glaucoma, he anticipated its eradication. Yet, eventhough the cause of the disease could be identified,no cure could be found. After discovering myocilin,
Kubota, wanting to treat patients himself, turned tothe profession of health care. However, desiring tofind a way to cure more patients from blindness, hejourneyed to the United States in 2000 to embark on
the path of research once again.
While at the University of Washington in 2002, heestablished the venture Kubota Vision Inc. (formerlyknown as Acucela Inc.) based on his own research on
cell-based screening technology. The company worked
on developing a new drug for age-related maculardegeneration, a common cause of blindness in Europe
and the United States, but in the end, they did not get
the results they were hoping for. “The probability ofsuccess in developing a new drug is said to be one in30,000. I had a succession of failures for more than six
and a half years before I discovered the causative genefor glaucoma, so I’m not so afraid of failure. But withthe company consequently moving into a new phase,
it was just a shame that I had to part ways with mycolleagues, many of whom I had been with since thecompany was first created,” recalls Kubota.
So it was that in 2016 Kubota moved his base toJapan and made a fresh start once again, this timewith Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings. Current
pipeline projects include Kubota Glass, soon to bereleased in Taiwan. These special glasses aim to treat
and control the progression of myopia by creating theillusion of looking at distant objects using augmented
reality, projecting images directly onto the retina.
Besides the fact that more people are suffering fromnearsightedness in recent years due to widespreaduse of smartphones and computers, it has become
clear that myopia is the cause of various eye diseases.
Therefore, Kubota thought that correcting myopia
would be effective in preventing eye diseases thatcause blindness.

KUBOTA Ryo, M.D., Ph.D.,
an ophthalmologist as well aspresident and chief executive
officer of Kubota PharmaceuticalHoldings. After many years of
research and through hisexperience discovering the causative
gene of glaucoma, Kubota learned
the importance of persevering
without ever giving up.
“The reason why I can keep on trying in fields
in which results are hard to achieve is that I
enjoy the daily process of trial and error withmy colleagues,” explains Kubota.

Top: A photo taken at a meeting at NASA on the development progress of thediagnostic device for eye diseases that Kubota Pharmaceutical is jointly
developing with the space agency.
Bottom:Kubota Glass is a special pair of glasses that aims to treat and control
the progression of myopia with their built-in mechanism to project an image
onto the retina. The company received medical device registration approval in
Taiwan. Global clinical trials are being planned from the latter half of 2022.

The company also has worked to develop a compact
optical coherence tomography (OCT) device thatcan be carried on the US National Aeronautics andSpace Administration (NASA)’s manned mission toMars. The compact binocular-like diagnostic device
helps to determine eye diseases that affect many crew
members on long-duration spaceflights, enabling onthe-spot AI diagnoses while transmitting data on thecondition of the eyes from space back to Earth. The
device is also being looked at for use in telemedicineon the ground, including on remote islands and inareas with sparse populations.
“It is unusual for pharmaceutical companies todevelop equipment, but innovation is impossible
unless we do something out of the ordinary. Most
unconventional businesses fail, but a few of them
become game-changers. In other words, venturecompanies and startups are the means for diversity,
just like the small species that survived the era wheneven dinosaurs went extinct,” says Kubota. His tirelessly
pursued efforts may finally come to fruition in Japan, acountry focused on carving out its future through thepower of science, technology, and innovation.