Response to ‘Why Japan lacks a vibrant biotech industry’

In their April article, Mark Kessel and Chris Vickrey raise several valid concerns about the Japanese life sciences industry and why it is not reaching its full potential¹. They acknowledge that a negative pricing environment for innovative medicines is part of the problem, as is a history of government underinvestment. Missing from their argument, however, are some recent initiatives from Japanese agencies that aim to address these issues.

The authors assert that “Japan has simply failed to develop a startup ecosystem, especially in biotech.” However, we argue that the nation’s startup ecosystem is growing. Across all industries, venture capital investments in Japanese startups across all disciplines have increased in the past decade — from US $500 million in 2012 to $9.7 billion in 2023. In biotech specifically, Japanese venture capital investments totaled $913 million in 2023.