Where is Japan looking for medical innovations?

While Japan has a fast-evolving healthcare sector, it also faces gaps that overseas companies can help address.

In the run-up to BioJapan 2026 – Asia’s largest biotechnology expo – understanding these unmet needs and how international technologies can address them will be critical for companies looking to expand in Japan.

In this article, I look at four areas where international innovations will find a particularly receptive market.

1. Drug loss and lag: the need for overseas input 

In 2023, around 60% of 143 medicines approved in the US or Europe were not even being developed in Japan. By March 2025, the Ministry of Health, Labour & Welfare reported that another 28 approved in Europe or the US were also not being developed here.

Japan is missing out on orphan drugs, paediatric drugs and other new treatments. And drug loss is only part of the story. Japan also struggles with drug lag, with new medicines – often developed by overseas companies – reaching Japanese patients much later than those in the US and Europe.

The good news is the Japanese government knows this is a problem and is trying to reduce the barriers international companies face when trying to enter the market. For example, until recently, it was mandatory to conduct an additional Phase 1 trial in Japan, even if Phase 3 had been successfully completed elsewhere. This is no longer expected where there is no scientific need for one. Meanwhile, Japan is strengthening its infrastructure for first-in-human and early-stage trials.

The message is clear: Japan wants overseas companies to consider the country during development. Its priority remains on fostering innovation domestically, but it is also increasingly looking beyond its borders.

2. AI: major interest, but a high bar for entry

AI will be everywhere at BioJapan, but ‘AI-powered’ is no longer a differentiator. It can even be a distraction to the main value proposition.

Japan's major pharmaceutical companies are already investing in AI, building internal capabilities and working with technology partners.

A new entrant needs to offer something that cannot be easily replicated. That might be proprietary data, a specialist application or evidence that a technology can save time, reduce costs or improve outcomes. Ideally, AI should add to something you already have.

Tempus is one such example of a successful entrant into the Japanese market. The US company entered Japan in 2014 through a joint venture with SoftBank Group, offering genetic testing alongside the collection and analysis of clinical data to support cancer treatment decisions.

While Japan has already built substantial cancer-genomics infrastructure, turning large amounts of genomic and clinical data into actionable treatment decisions remains a challenge. A recent study by the US National Cancer Center highlights that only 8% of patients undergoing cancer gene panel testing subsequently received a new targeted treatment based on the results. Companies like Tempus bridge the gap between existing and new tech, in this case using AI to combine genomic and clinical data to help physicians identify relevant treatment options.

Here, AI enhances an existing diagnostic and data-analysis service, rather than serving as the sole value proposition.

Some of the strongest opportunities may also be the least fashionable, and having AI in your tech is not mandatory.

Japan is getting older and its workforce is shrinking, so healthcare companies need to do more with fewer people. Technologies that automate repetitive work, shorten R&D or manufacturing processes, reduce labour requirements or cut costs address an important structural problem. They may not generate the same buzz as AI, but the business case can be much easier to demonstrate.

3. Women's health: an unexploited opportunity

Women's health remains an underserved sector in Japan.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry (METI) estimates that menstrual symptoms, menopause, gynaecological cancers and infertility treatment cost the country around JPY 3.4 trillion (US$21.92 billion) every year.

Japan is taking notice: between 2021 and 2025, METI supported 79 femtech demonstration projects covering areas including menstruation, fertility, pregnancy, postpartum care and menopause. The programme has also provided a route for new technologies to be tested in Japan, creating opportunities for overseas companies with solutions that address women's health needs.

US-based Lady Technologies, for example, recently entered the Japanese market with its home-use fertility device, keg, that measures changes in cervical mucus to identify women’s fertility window. The technology was evaluated through clinical research in Japan and included in a METI-supported demonstration project before becoming the first product to enter Japan under a new medical-device category for home cervical-mucus measurement.

Lady Technologies has subsequently formed a partnership with Japanese femtech company Fermata to bring kegg to the Japanese market, with consumer sales beginning this year.

Here, a specific need is being met: the western company is generating evidence in Japan and working with Japanese partners towards commercialisation.

As government and industry attention to women's health continues to grow, overseas companies offering similarly targeted technologies should find an increasingly receptive market.

4. Pandemic preparedness: a strategic need

COVID-19 exposed gaps in Japan's ability rapidly to develop and manufacture vaccines and other critical medical technologies, from large-scale clinical development to advanced biomanufacturing and flexible domestic production capacity.

The nation’s first domestically-developed COVID-19 vaccine was not approved until August 2023, more than two years after imported vaccines became available and the pandemic was way past its peak.

The government has since invested heavily in these capabilities, including facilities that can manufacture biopharmaceuticals in normal times and switch to vaccine production in an emergency. Yet, strengthening domestic R&D and supply capacity remains a national priority.

For overseas companies, this creates opportunities not only for new vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, but for the technologies that enable Japan to develop and manufacture them faster – from novel modalities and rapid development platforms to bioprocessing, scale-up, manufacturing and analytical technologies.

What does all this mean for overseas companies?

Japan needs overseas innovation, but that does not mean every overseas technology will find a market here.

The biggest opportunities lie where Japan’s need and overseas tech capabilities intersect. That could mean filling a clinical gap, providing specialist technology that is difficult to source domestically, cutting costs or helping an organisation operate with fewer people. And the best way to find out if that demand exists is to talk to the market.

This is where BioJapan will prove invaluable. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies, startups, universities, research organisations and tech providers from Japan and overseas will all be there. For international companies, the goal should not simply be to showcase a technology, but to get direct customer feedback.

What problems are Japanese companies trying to solve? Where are they looking beyond Japan for answers? And, most importantly, does your technology solve one of those problems better than what’s already available?

The commercial opportunities are there for those who do their homework and take a carefully considered approach.

If you’d like to meet us at BioJapan or otherwise discuss your prospects in the country, leave us a message or email us at contact@intralinkgroup.com.