Establishment of the entrusted virus safety evaluation test
06 October 2017
The founding members led mainly by the teaching staff of Kobe University Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation, Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Co., Ltd. and Sunstar Inc. agreed to establish a new company which jointly supports the development of biopharmaceuticals on September 29, 2017. The name of the new company is ViSpot Inc…
The global biopharmaceutical market has been growing year after year, and newcomers to the market and products newly developed by the existing companies are expected to increase. Accordingly, demand for contract organizations which perform tests and relevant activities to assure that biopharmaceuticals produced from biological materials are not contaminated with viruses is expected to increase globally.
The new company will, as a third party, perform virus clearance tests on consignment in order to evaluate the degree by which the manufacturing process of a biopharmaceutical can eliminate viruses contaminated from the external environment.
At present, the main contract testing organizations that perform virus clearance tests are located in overseas countries. Therefore, this is inconvenient for the Japanese biopharmaceutical manufacturers as they have to send samples to an overseas country and to dispatch important development staff to a foreign country for a long time. The problems with physical distance and time difference are troublesome for the Japanese biopharmaceutical manufacturers and place an extra burden on them when they discuss or correspond on tests. Such problems may become disadvantages to the Japanese biopharmaceutical industry in terms of the global competition.
With experienced staffs that fully satisfy customers’requirements, the new company aims at contributing to the acceleration of the biopharmaceutical development and the growth of the biopharmaceutical industry in Japan through provision of the services with geographical convenience, satisfying delivery, economic efficiency and reliability. It will also actively make efforts to introduce new technologies into the safety evaluation of biopharmaceuticals.
Overview of the new company
- Company name: ViSpot Inc.
- Foundation: September 29, 2017
- Representative Director (Chairperson of the board) Eito MORISADA, Representative Director (President) Tomoko KOTANI
- Capital: 40 million JPY
- Investment ratio: Kobe University teaching staff, Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Co., Ltd. and others: 50%; Sunstar Inc.: 50%.
- Head office: Rokkodaicho 1-1, Nada-ku, Kobe-shi [It will move to Kobe Center for Medical Innovation (Minatojima-Minamimachi 6-3-5, Chuo-ku, Kobe-shi)]
- Description of business: Virus safety evaluation test (virus clearance test) on consignment; a series of services from test designing, creation and submission of a test protocol to creation and submission of a report that contains all necessary test information such as descriptions and results of the test performed, control of devices at the laboratory and virus measurement; and quality assurance as a third party, including the response to questions from the regulatory authorities.
About Kobe University Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation
The vision of Kobe University is to keep trying to create new values for solving the issues facing our society both at present and in the future, developing the tradition based on the philosophy of “harmony between theory and reality,” promoting advanced research and encouraging research that defies the boundaries between the humanities and the sciences. This course is Japan’s first independent graduate school that combines the humanities and sciences. In this graduate course, the members of the social science field (Economics, Business Administration, Law, etc.) and the natural science field (Medical Science, Engineering, Agricultural Science, Science, System Informatics, etc.) work together, aiming at achieving the vision of Kobe University by combining the significant four fields (Bioproduction, Advanced Membrane Technology, Advanced Information and Communication Technology and Advanced Medical Science) that are positioned as flagship researches by Kobe University with the entrepreneurship that focuses on business creation. In February 2017, the members led by the teaching staff of this graduate course founded two bio startups: Bio Palette Co., Ltd. (http://www.biopalette.co.jp/), which utilizes the “genome editing technology” and Synplogen Co., Ltd. (http://www.synplogen.co.jp/), which utilizes the genome synthesis technology.
About Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Co., Ltd.
It was founded in January 2016. At present, the shareholders consist of its board members led by teaching staff of Kobe University as well as Kobe University Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation. This company finances the foundation of startups originated from Kobe University and supports their management during the inaugural period for the purpose of promoting conversion of the study results of Kobe University into businesses. It closely cooperates particularly with Kobe University Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation to provide comprehensive investment/human-resources development services including business strategies, financial strategies, and intellectual property strategies. It has strongly supported the two bio startups described above since before their foundation. Location: Rokkodaicho 1-1, Nada-ku, Kobe-shi (http://www.ste-kobe.co.jp)
About Sunstar Inc.
Sunstar Inc. is the core company of the Sunstar Group and is an unlisted company. Under the corporate motto of “Always strive to help people everywhere achieve better health and enhance their quality of life,” it manufactures and distributes consumables such as oral care products, health foods and beauty products. Utilizing the resources of these business areas, it pursues beauty and health of the mouth and the whole body to support the well-being of people.