ANV Organizes Inaugural Science-2-Science Japan Symposium

The first ever S2S Japan symposium in Tokyo on November 8, 2024 brought together almost 200 Japanese researchers and academics with US venture capitalists, as well as representatives from Japan’s pharma industry and government for a day of presentations, learning and networking.

The conference was based around investment pitches by six Japanese academics, who presented their innovative research to the audience – and, in particular – to the VCs present in the room.

These six finalists, all from prestigious universities and research institutions, had been selected from approximately 100 applicants and each of them had worked on their company strategy and pitch with an assigned VC mentor for several months ahead of their final presentation.

The format was based on an existing S2S event series in the US that was established by RA Capital Management (one of our VC mentors) and Atlas in Boston more than a decade ago. It has now been brought to Japan, thanks to an agreement between the US event founders and ANV’s Ken Horne.

Participants commented positively on the quality of the science, the creativity and dedication of the researchers and the range of the content presented by the symposium. “This rivalled anything we have done in our decade of S2S events in the US”, said Josh Resnick, Senior Managing Director at RA Capital Management.

Other highlights of the symposium included a presentation by three senior representatives from the Japanese government about their plans to increase funding for life science innovation; practical advice from a top lawyer and accountant on how to found a startup company in the US; and wise words from Dr. Paul Rothman, the former Dean of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and CEO of John Hopkins Hospital Group, who has spent decades helping academic faculty become entrepreneurs.

Our key takeaway from a memorable day:

If you want to turn promising science into therapies that will make a difference to people’s lives you need to follow your instinct, take risks and tolerate failure. The infrastructure to create startups is important; a culture that encourages you to do so matters more.

We would like to acknowledge our talented finalists and their hard-working mentors:

• Masanori Nakayama (Okayama University) and Aiden Aceves (Insight Partners): this team has identified a novel protein which, if suppressed, can slow the progress of chronic kidney disease (CKD).

• Yoshikazu Nakaoka (National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center) and Andrew Levin (RA Capital Management): their work has identified a key pathway for tackling drug-resistant pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

• Tomoko Nakatani/Yuji Ito (Kagoshima University) and Aiden Aceves (Insight Partners): this team is developing highly functional drug delivery systems (DDS), specifically for diseases affecting the brain.

• Hiroshi Abe (Nagoya University) and Eric Shiozaki (DCVC Bio): the focus is on a platform technology for drug discovery using chemically modified circular mRNA.  

• Masahito Matsumoto (Juntendo University) and Eric Shiozaki (DCVC Bio): the team is working on cell fate conversion technology to create a cure for type-1 diabetes.

• Tomonobu Koizumi (Riken research institute) and Josh Resnick (RA Capital Management): the team’s ‘glycans-albumin’ modality technology has potential to open new frontiers for developing drug delivery systems and related therapeutics.

Finally, a big thank you to all the sponsors who made this event such a success.