Biotech executives from Japan kick the tires on Mass. - The Boston Globe

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Business & TechJapanese executives ponder
investing in Mass.

SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF
Members of the Japanese delegation, including Yasushi Okubo, founder and CEO of Corescope (atleft), at Parexel.

By Jonathan Saltzman
GLOBE STAFFFEBRUARY 11, 2018

They visited a giant laboratory in Cambridge shared by emerging biotech
companies and walked the life sciences mecca that is Kendall Square. They
met with government officials who want to lure foreign companies tohttps://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/02/11/biotech-executives-from-japan-ki...

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Massachusetts. They even saw the New England Patriots lose the Super Bowl
on a hotel TV screen as fans around them groaned in disgust.
A dozen leaders from six small Japanese biotechs from Kyoto, along with
officials from a Japanese government trade organization, toured Boston,Cambridge, and nearby suburbs last week to get a feel for the place. They
wanted to know whether the state would be fertile territory for theirbusinesses to expand, whether they would have access to patients for clinical
trials of drugs, and whether Massachusetts companies might eventually wantto collaborate with them on business ventures.
The answers seemed to be yes, if the reaction of one of the visitors was anygauge.
“To me, it’s one of the most attractive places in the US,” said Dr. Yasumichi
Hitoshi, chief executive of Thyas Co. Ltd., a Japanese biotech startup
experimenting with immunotherapy to treat cancers and infectious diseases.
“There’s a lot of venture capital. And I learned that everything’s in walking
distance.”
As part of their visit, the Japanese business leaders last week toured Parexel
International Corp., a large Waltham company that performs clinical trials
for many drug companies. Parexel has 18,000 employees worldwide,
including 3,000 in Massachusetts.
Alberto Grignolo, corporate vice president of Parexel, worked from 2011 to2013 in Japan because his company has offices in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe.
He helped arrange the visit.
Japanese drug makers, like many in Europe, have already set up someoperations in Massachusetts, home to the world’s largest cluster of life
science and biotech companies.

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In 2008, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. bought Cambridge-based Millennium
Pharmaceuticals, one of the state’s best-known biotechnology companies, for$8.8 billion. Millennium, renamed Takeda Oncology, has become thecancer-fighting division of the giant Japanese drug maker.
A year later, Japan’s Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma bought Sepracor Inc., ofMarlborough, which was renamed Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. It makes
medicines to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which affects
more than 15 million Americans.
Several economic factors in Japan are spurring more companies to lookabroad, according to Grignolo. Japan has a low birth rate, universal healthcare, generally risk-adverse venture capitalists, and a government that
increasingly is pressuring drug makers to limit or cut prices of blockbuster
medicines.
Some of those trends may help explain why Japan has one of the world’s
longest healthy life expectancy rates, but they don’t necessarily make thecountry the most hospitable place for startup biotech companies.
“The message from the government to companies is go global, which in thiscase probably means find US partners,” Grignolo said.
Several of the leaders of the Japanese biotechs and the Japan External Trade
Organization, which also sent representatives on the trip, said one of themost appealing things about the life sciences sector in Massachusetts is thepresence of world-famous teaching hospitals.
Patients undergoing treatment for serious diseases at those hospitals areoften eager to participate in clinical trials of experimental drugs, as are theirdoctors, the visiting executives said.

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Biotech executives from Japan kick the tires on Mass. - The Boston Globe

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The Japanese contingent also met with officials from the administration ofGovernor Charlie Baker, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s office, theMassachusetts Biotechnology Council, and LabCentral Inc., a Cambridge
nonprofit that runs shared laboratory space for biotech startups.
The business leaders visited New York after leaving Boston.
Jonathan Saltzman
can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.

© 2018 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC

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