Healthcare

Events

9-11 October 2024

Bio Japan

25-27 June 2025

Employee Health Management EXPO

9-11 July 2025

Medical Device Development Expo

2 July 2025

Health & Beauty Goods EXPO

Paper medical records

While Japan’s healthcare market is flourishing: the trade of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment is large and keeps increasing. Japanese healthcare is of a very high standard and its insurance system allows individuals to enjoy medical services at any medical institution. However, healthcare is expensive and the system is still very traditional. There is a lack of digital applications and services and medical records are often not digitised. Since the Covid-19 pandemic however, online medical services have slowly emerged.

An aging society

Japan’s healthcare market is booming due to its rapidly aging society (in 2022: 29.8% or 36 million people were above 65, in 2050: around 40%) and its high life expectancy (the highest in the world in 2021: 84.7 years on average). The expanding elderly population puts pressure on Japan’s social security system: more healthcare is needed, pushing up healthcare costs and requiring more medical workers and caretakers, of which there is already a shortage. By 2040, around 10,7 million medical- and welfare workers are needed, with an expected shortage of around 1 million employees.

Opportunities

Dutch startups and scale-ups can provide added value in the field of healthy aging (e.g. preventing dementia), e-health and regenerative medicine. Also solutions based on AI such as image recognition and developing disease prediction models, as well as for of data use to stimulate federated learning are areas of interest. These types of innovations can help to lower the healthcare costs and improve efficiency of Japan's overburdened healthcare system.

Photo by Julia Koblitz on Unsplash

The KBIC-network

Japan’s largest biomedical innovation hub is located in the City of Kobe: the Kobe Biomedical Innovation Cluster (KBIC), where more than 350 of Japan’s top-level companies and research institutions are located. Part of the KBIC-network are the Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation (FBRI), Kobe City and SME Support who offer business support for foreign start- or scaleups such as introductions to possible business partners, local firms and experts.