KYOTO-SPARK, Opportunity for the Drug Development in Academia

Tomoyoshi Koyanagi, Associate Professor, Medical Science & Business Liaison Organization, Kyoto University

There is no ecosystem available in Kyoto for bringing about healthcare innovation. To translate outstanding research results into products, a system to organize people and funds is necessary. This is why we launched HVC KYOTO.
To cross the "death valley" of drug discovery, we need an incubation system to translate scientific discoveries into verifiable data and a marketplace to generate funds to move on to the next step. HVC KYOTO was founded to create such a marketplace. The role of incubation has now changed from the provision of a "place" alone to the provision of a combination of "people, goods and funds." KYOTO-SPARK was established by Kyoto University to address this new trend in incubation.
SPARK is a practical training program designed to help facilitate translational research in drug discovery. The program was started at Stanford University in 2006, based on the concept of "bench to bedside." SPARK provides university researchers with educational assistance to achieve the translation of basic medical research into clinical applications as well as mentoring, and also funding opportunities. There are now many SPARK programs throughout the world.
One of the advantageous features of KYOTO-SPARK is mentoring by volunteer advisors with 20 to 30 years of expertise and experience in different fields. We invite the university's researchers to bring their projects and give them lectures and mentoring to help them develop strategies to translate important research results into products. The goal is to achieve technology transfer in the industry and create startups.
Our focus is not only on intangible efforts but also on tangible results. In new research facilities of Kyoto University, we have created spaces dedicated to incubation where researchers can start their research on the day they move in. Our goal is to establish an ecosystem in Kyoto, in cooperation with those interested from Japan and abroad.

[Speaker Profile]
Dr. Koyanagi is serving for academic society as a business development manager focusing on development of early stage technologies for clinical application of basic science. Through his experience as a scientist in Stanford University, he realized the importance of startups eco-system in Silicon Valley area and its impact for academic society. That experience motivated him to engage in commercialization of state-of-art technologies into healthcare products. Based on his hands on experiences in drug discovery and regenerative medicine product development, he serves for Kyoto University to discover early stage technology and consults scientists to develop their science to be innovative products for the community.
KYOTO-SPARK website: http://www.kyoto-spark.med.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/

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