Mind the Byte enter the Japanese market and expect a turnover of 1.2 million euros in 2020
<p>The biotech firm closes a distribution agreement with a Japanese firm during the ACCIÓ and Biocat trade mission to BioJapan in Yokohama</p>
The biotechnology firm Mind the Byte expects a revenue of 1.2 million euros in 2020 from the Japanese market. Although up to now they had no commercial presence in the market, this will now be possible thanks to a distribution agreement just signed with Japanese firm Filgen following a trade mission organized by ACCIÓ and Biocat (through bioXclusters+) in which they participated along with six other Catalan firms.
Mind the Byte, which is dedicated to the computational drug discovery using big data and machine learning, first made contact with Filgen in 2015 during an ACCIÓ mission. This week, during BioJapan in Yokohama –the most important trade fair in Asia in the area of biotechnology– the firm was able to close an agreement and formalize their entry into the Japanese market.
“This is our third time travelling to Japan, and the meetings we had this week show that perseverance and trust are key; it’s a far cry from the first approach we made a year and a half ago”, says the firm’s founder and CEO, Alfons Nonell-Canals. He is celebrating this new milestone as he considers Japan to be a key country in the sector. “The global bioinformatics market in Japan is expected to grow 21% by 2020”, he adds.
Mind the Byte participated at BioJapan with an ACCIÓ and Biocat stand which also hosted Catalan firms Rubió, Salvat, Leukos Biotech, Ability Pharma, Thrombotargets and ZeClinics. It is estimated that this year’s event was attended by 15,000 professionals, company executives and scientists who took part in more than 8,000 meetings. The Catalan firms took advantage of the trip to also take in a visit to the Osaka region, which is home to one of the main hubs in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
Given that Japan is the second-largest pharmaceutical market in the world, and a leader in biotechnology sector imports, the aim of this mission was for firms to establish or consolidate their presence in the country. According to the Biocat 2015 Report, Japan ranks amongst the top ten priority markets for Catalan life sciences and healthcare firms, along with the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, Brazil and China.
Related news:
- Biocat and ACCIÓ bring a Catalan mission to the most important biotechnology fair in Asia (10.10.2016)
- New consortium between Ferrer, IBEC and biotech firm Mind the Byte to research tumor metastasis (15.09.2016)
- Mind the Byte scoops largest crowdequity round of funding in the biotech sector in Spain (04.11.2015)