Characteristics of Japanese Biotech Venture Firms from the Perspective of Business Field, Investment Composition, Joint Research, and Patent Applications A Research Network Perspective
Yosuke Okada (Faculty of Economics, Shinshu University; Chief Researcher, Pharmaceutical Industry Policy Institute)
Ichiro Okino (Senior Researcher, Pharmaceutical and Industrial Policy Research Institute)
Yoshihiro Narita (Senior Researcher, Pharmaceutical and Industrial Policy Research Institute)
(No.10: Published in July 2002)
The research network surrounding Japanese bio-venture companies is not fully functional. Simply increasing the pipeline of funding from the government will not sufficiently enhance the function of the research network. In order to facilitate collaborative research, it is necessary to develop intellectual and human resources infrastructure in a wide range of areas, including the supply of human resources and management support. Relatively small venture companies, which are suffering from a shortage of funds and human resources, tend to prefer to conduct joint research with domestic universities. This serves as a complement to the shortage of funds and human resources. However, collaboration between existing domestic companies and bio-venture companies is not sufficient. In addition, looking at Japanese venture companies by business field, the research area known as post-genome is a field with great promise for the future, but the area with the highest tendency to file patents in the past remains the area centered on genetic recombination. However, the number of new entries by bio-venture companies into various business fields has been increasing rapidly in the past two to three years.