Biotechnology Capital Raising: Look to East? 

This is our new series covering various countries and regions that are active in biotechnology / life science investment activities. The first one covers some countries in Asia Pacific region.

Asian markets are indeed, becoming more significant for life science / biotechnology sectors. In Asia, China and Japan are both major markets for life sciences & medical devices sectors; while India is one of the world’s markets for pharmaceuticals. 

Investment activities and expertise vary significant from country to country depending on the nation’s R&D and capabilities, here are some findings by us:

Japan: Japan leads the world in many areas especially in biotechnology & medical devices, major investors in Japan are often associated with Japanese universities, also its major conglomerates such as Hitachi, Olympus, Canon; they have expertise in major medical equipments both for treatments and diagnosis, and have been very active investing in these sectors.

China: China’s significance in medical industry is indisputable. Venture capital activities in its healthcare industry remains relatively new compared to other sectors such as green and telecommunications industry. Nevertheless, there have been steady increase of Chinese investment firms (often supported by US or Israeli VC firms) investing in both life-science and medical devices; other interesting sectors including hospitals, specialist treatment centers as well as medical tourism.

India: India has been one of the world’s major pharmaceuticals industry for over 2 decades. In terms of investments, Indian, American, Israeli and Singaporean venture capital firms are the most active investors in the Indian healthcare industry. There are some bright spots in India attracting investors; first is the growing medical tourism industry, second, investing into pharmaceutical plants, third, e-health where Indian firms have demonstrated their strong capability in developing software and imaging solutions both for diagnosis and networking, billing and file transfer solutions.

In the past, much of the investments have been from international investors led by American, Israeli, UK and German investors. These days, Asian opportunities are also being invested by pan-Asian venture capital & private equity firms.

More importantly, is to see the rise of Asian VC firms investing into opportunities outside Asia; particularly in the US, and also into European markets. 

In general, these investors are primarily from Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore; Singaporean investments are also supported by its Government’s initiative to invest in global opportunities. 

Chinese VC firms are slowly getting into global arena in the healthcare sector, at moment, most of the deals are focused in the medical devices sector, but it is expected that Chinese medical companies will soon follow the US model by forming separate investment arms as its subsidiary company, this will certainly create a new investment capital available for companies worldwide. 

Please check out our Global Biotechnology Capital Providers Guide if you are looking for investors for your project, this guide includes over 900 investment firms worldwide that are active in life sciences & biotechnology sectors. Our website is http://researchwhitepaper.com