Japanese SMEs Rise to Meet the Challenge of Healthcare Needs
The healthcare market in Japan accounted for 10.9% of GDP in 2018, according to the OECD, and is the second-largest life science market in the world. These statistics are likely to be magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic, challenging Japanese companies to apply their technological abilities to search for solutions. Already, significant breakthroughs have been made to improve people’s lives as Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adapt know-how to need.
Finding Answers in Flexibility
Icomes Lab CEO Katano Keiji believes that having an expansive outlook stimulates growth. “R&D and high-craft manufacturing are our focus as we scale our life science business to the global market,” he says. Icomes Lab made a breakthrough with “pipetty,” an innovative electronic pen-type pipette that is being used in COVID-19 test kits. The pipette is the smallest and most accurate electronic pipette in the world thanks to its unique 8mm micro-actuator that features a gear of 1mm. It is the only electronic pipette that compensates for dispensing inaccuracies caused by the hand heat of the operator. This can increase the internal temperature of a pipette by up to 2.5%, but "pipetty" reduces the margin of error to just 0.3%. Its sister product, “pipetty Smart,” allows wireless communication to a smartphone and its design eliminates repetitive stress of logging.
Cambrian Robotics provides an innovative, cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) development platform - obniz - that can easily be deployed and was put to swift use as the COVID-19 pandemic spread. In just two months, the startup rolled out a cloud-based environmental monitoring solution that, when connected to hardware, provides real-time visualization of CO2 levels in shared spaces such as offices, restaurants, wedding halls and even hot-spring resorts.
“It can be set up in just two minutes,” CEO Sato Yuki says. Obniz lowers barriers to growing by eliminating the time needed to develop firmware and reducing costs by up to 50%. “Developers who have been locked out of the market due to prohibitive cost will be free to develop new applications on our platform,” Sato adds.
Striving Beyond the Norm
Koken is also in the business of clean air, but from a different angle. The company has three business domains: clean air solutions, health solutions and safety solutions. Under the safety solutions domain, it has been developing top-of-the-line protective equipment since 1943, and is now a top industrial mask manufacturer in Japan. It diversified into the medical sector in the wake of the SARS epidemic. It, too, has responded to the COVID-19 crisis. Hi-Luck 350 (N95) masks, which were designed for Japanese faces, are known for their snug fit on various facial shapes and sizes. This prevents the leakage of virus-size particulates and ensures security when worn by medical professionals. The Hi-Luck mask has a leakage rate of just 0.56%, compared to 60-to-70% for ordinary surgical masks, thanks to the company’s fit testing on 470,000 people over 10 years.
“Koken developed masks that perfectly fit on Japanese faces by challenging the perception that normal masks were good enough in terms of preventing diffusion without leakage,” President and COO Murakawa Tsutomu says. “We strive to see beyond the norm and develop true innovation.”
Koken has a large share in the domestic medical market, providing disposable masks for 60% of the nation’s designated infectious disease medical facilities and 80% percent of public health centers. The company prefers an end-to-end approach, from research to manufacturing know-how, rather than relying on academia and outsourcing.
Koken's another innovation is KOACH cleanroom technology, which is capable of ensuring air quality of the highest ISO standard (Class 1). This is 100,000 times greater than the standard for regular cleanrooms (Class 6). The system has been implemented by both the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA. When the pandemic emerged, the company adapted the technology for the protection of medical workers. The Stand KOACH Mz is a portable, booth-sized clean-air-zone creator boasting a filtration rate of 99.999998% against fine particulates with a diameter of 0.1 μm, the size of viruses. It’s portable, quiet enough to allow stethoscope usage and energy efficient.
An Environment of Innovation
While funding and academic support are important to Japan’s environment of innovation, much of the impetus comes from local initiatives. Icomes Lab was proud to stay close to its northern Japan roots and in 2015 was instrumental in establishing the Tohoku Life science Instruments Cluster (TOLIC), a regional coalition of 21 life-science related companies supported by 43 associated organizations, including universities, banks and other institutions. TOLIC provides total solutions to life-science issues and promotes global awareness of the cluster’s capabilities. “It can be challenging to grow an SME to global scale,” says Icomes Lab CEO Katano. “Thanks to cooperation with industrial, governmental, financial and academic institutions, it has led to innovative product development and worldwide business in the field of life sciences.”
Going down a different route, Cambrian Robotics raised its international profile by utilizing Kickstarter and got 100 million yen ($930,000) in seed money from UTEC, the University of Tokyo Edge Capital investment firm that “pioneers frontiers to solve global issues of humankind.” Its target of IoT seems to make sense financially. The global IoT in the healthcare market is estimated to be worth $158 billion in 2022 and has been predicted to rise by up to 30% annually.
Finding Solutions for the Future
Japanese SMEs are using their know-how and unique technologies to find solutions for both current and emerging social problems. At Koken, Chairman Sakai Shinichiro suggested combining their knowledge of respirators with the company’s cleanroom technology capable of creating ISO Class 1 air quality. But the application of these new technologies can be made in any number of areas. For example, Cambrian Robotics’ environmental monitoring system is being used in nursing homes, where it allows staff to visualize conditions immediately and save their time for more critical care duties. “In one way, we are providing a new service,” CEO Sato says. “But beyond that, I think we have an opportunity to look ahead to the future in a different way.”
Note: All Japanese names in this advertorial are given in the traditional format, with the family name preceding the given name.
To learn more about Koken, click here.
To learn more about Icomes Lab, click here.
To learn more about Cambrian Robotics, click here.
To learn more about TOLIC (Tohoku Life science Instruments Cluster), click here.
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