Will biotech venture thrive in the new climate in Japan?

I recently kicked off a biotech venture company in Japan. This is something unusual to see here, as there are few university-based startup companies in this country. According to one statistic, the number of biotech venture companies in Japan is now around 60, very many fewer than in the US which has around 1,700. Only ten new companies started last year and most of them were backed by established parent companies with the encouragement of the Japanese government. Indeed the Ministry of International Trade and Industry wants to help launch 1,000 biotech ventures and to create 80,000 new jobs by 2010. There is a craving for biotech ventures but who is going to take up the challenge? After finishing a post-doc in the US, I came back to Japan and became an assistant professor in a national university. I carried out my research with graduate students and post-docs, having support from my boss and lots of collaborators. I was a government employee in a tenured position, secure until the retirement age of 60 to 65. The general attitude was: “Don’t get off the track, develop your career along this line, change your position only when promoted to a better one in academia.” The salary was low but with the compensation of generous pension benefits. The retirement benefit rises simply by the number of years you serve: this also discourages any job change. Nobody sees any merit in taking risks to take a new job outside of academia. So when I disclosed my plan to move, my friends advised me to think twice: some of them thought I was giving up research. The ‘venture’ I first joined was a half-government and half-privately owned company. Both sectors decided to jointly sponsor the new company for a fixed period of seven years. I was recruited as a group leader and managed a research group that eventually grew to 20 members, including scientists, technicians, post-docs and graduate students. The annual budget was much higher than that available in university. The package was quite good apart from my salary, which was kept more or less at the government rate. The majority of the people were dispatched from the sponsoring, parent companies.