U.S.-Japan Healthcare Connection Japan Week 2023

I’ve now been back from Japan for about 5 days, and, in spite of a lingering case of jetlag or conference hangover (or both), I’m feeling both relieved and excited about the success of this year’s Healthcare Conference put on by JSNC.

The theme of this year’s conference was “The Future of AI and Robotics in Healthcare.” Like other areas of the economy, healthcare has been pursuing the promise of AI (and wrestling with the challenges) for several years. However, the launch of ChatGPT last year has accelerated interest from all angles, including many startups that are actively seeking to apply AI to a variety of healthcare challenges.

This year’s conference featured presentations and discussions about the promise and challenge of new technologies such AI and Robotics in healthcare from US and Japanese perspectives. The conference also served to bring together people from the private sector, the public sector and academia to make connections with each other.

To that end, we had a very busy schedule. You can see pictures of the week here.  Over the span of 5 days, we had:

• Two conference events (Nagoya – full day, Tokyo – half-day) (thank you to our partners Nagoya University Medical School and LINK-J Japan)
• Four hosted dinner events (huge thank you to sponsors Morgan Lewis and Wilson Sonsini!)
• A breakfast program with the American Chamber of Commerce of Japan (ACCJ) Healthcare Committee
• Wrap-up breakfast meeting for our Healthcare Advisory Council members

Dr. Frank Litvack and Dr. Khizer Khaderi

We had an outstanding program this year, with two excellent keynote speakers who traveled from the US (Dr. Khizer Khaderi, founder of the Human Perception Lab at Stanford and an AI expert, and Dr. Frank Litvack, a renowned cardiologist turned highly successful serial healthtech entrepreneur and investor), as well as 11 impressive medtech startup companies from across the US, and one from Greece. 

The startups included:

• Alerje – an app that helps people with food allergies alert their care providers and get emergency help
• Amaros – an AI-based software platform that helps find patients with eye disease get early treatment and participate in clinical studies 
• Digital Diagnostics – a diagnostic platform that uses AI for early identification of patients with diabetic retinopathy
• Dyania Health – an AI engine that trains a large language model for use in clinical research
• Ficor – wearable device that eliminates wrist pain caused by carpal tunnel syndrome and other wrist afflictions
• Larmor Bio – AI-based MRI for microscale molecular blood analysis that is used to allow early-stage diagnosis and clinical research
• Level42AI – maker of point-of-care devices that make early diagnosis of various health conditions possible
• Mind Machine – a strategic marketing and advertising agency advising early stage healthcare companies on growth
• PantridgeDTell – a San Diego-based company developing AI-based tools for early diagnosis and treatment of cardiac arrest
• Radux Devices – makers of a radiation shield used to protect physicians from radiation exposure during procedures
• ViOptix – device for real-time measurement of tissue oxygen saturation

The program attracted strong interest, with more than 240 people attending our Nagoya event, and another 130 people joining our Executive Forum in Tokyo.  We also had a number of dinner and breakfast events surrounding the conference sessions that helped to build connections among the attendees and conference participants.

If you are active in the healthcare field, you should start thinking now about attending the next iteration of this conference which will take place in 2024.