UCHU Abroad, Part 2: Kyoto's Healthcare Venture Conference in Japan
Our CEO, Dan Weinstein, recently went to Kyoto, Japan for the international Healthcare Venture Conference. This conference focuses on early stage life-science innovation companies, while it's also aimed at fostering better connections between scientists and the commercial partnerships that can bring their ideas and products to the rest of the world. This conference was an amazing opportunity for us to meet with potential venture capitalists and other companies who would be interested in UCHU. Dan was able to meet with representatives from Johnson & Johnson, Rohto Pharmaceuticals and Mitsubishi Healthcare! J&J would like to get in contact in Boston and while Mistubishi doesn't currently invest in dentistry, it's representative was extremely interested in our product given his dental background - he even mentioned many Japanese dentists would be interested in using or investing in our product as well.
Johnan, a Japanese design and manufacturing firm, was also intrigued by our product seeing as they have previously worked on an oral sensor of their own. They have made investments before of up to $1MM in US-based companies and they're currently waiting on some more of our developments here at UCHU; another promising potential lead for the future. Switching over to the pharma side, we were able to meet with Bayer. By meeting with Bayer's representatives we were able to learn that while not all medical companies may be involved with dental-tech, they still want to be able to monitor drug effectiveness and patient reactions. This was a key breakthrough for UCHU, seeing as our oral monitors could potentially have widespread medical applications going into the future. We're more than excited to see where this relationship could take us. In addition, we also met with none-other than the Tongue Lab. This company develops intra-oral devices to help out with patient breathing and sleep apnea (which is also related to tooth-decay). They were interested in potentially using some our sensors within their own appliances. Again, another great potential investor for the future.
Our meeting with GC Dental, one of the largest oral health companies in the world, was another networking breakthrough for UCHU. Interestingly enough, their products neutralize acids while they also use in-vitro studies to help determine their products' effectiveness. In and of itself, this company could potentially serve as another key partner for UCHU in the future. Both battling against the detrimental effects of high acid levels and low rates of monitoring/acid neutralization. We're definitely preparing all we've got to continue on with these great conversations and see where these connections could take us. In the meantime, some of our more social highlights from the trip involved sharing sake with the mayor of Kyoto and seeing all the great sites of the "Ancient City". See below for some great pictures!
