Osaka – Sunday, August 29, 2010
Nikkei, Japanese newspaper specialized in business and economy, reported today that Japanese IT related companies started to enter the U.S. healthcare IT market, when the U.S. counterparts have been accelerating their investment in this market. NEC is to enter the U.S. healthcare inspection business in the summer 2011. The company invests in the U.S. healthcare venture business and develops a system that determines risk of having disease by inspecting proteins in the blood. Fuji film integrated their U.S. healthcare information system affiliates to establish and strengthen their business of diagnostic imaging systems.
The U.S. preventive healthcare market is expected to grow with president Obama’s healthcare reform, and the U.S. companies have been entering and/strengthen their businesses in this market. Competition in the new promising healthcare IT market has started and is expected to get fierce.
1. Why is the U.S. preventive healthcare marketing promising and is expected to grow?
The healthcare IT demand is expected to grow dramatically with the increase in the healthcare insurance consumers. This is because of the healthcare insurance reform law was enacted in March. This law aims all of the U.S. citizens to benefit from the healthcare insurance.
Demand of preventive healthcare is also expected to grow because all the preventive healthcare cost is to be paid by insurance.
2. How are Japanese companies to enter and/or strengthen their healthcare IT business in the U.S.?
1) NEC
NEC is to enter the U.S. healthcare inspection business in the summer 2011 and to make healthcare IT business as a new business pillar. The company is to develop a new system that determine risk of having diseases by inspecting proteins in the blood, whose market size is expected to grow as big as more than 200 billion yen worldwide, the U.S. being the biggest market.
NEC invested 5 million USD (approximately 400 million yen) in a U.S. venture company and made alliance with the venture company. The venture company has a technology of inspecting in details proteins in blood. Based on the data from this inspection, NEC is to system that immediately determines risk of having diseases. The system will be located in a data centre in the U.S. The inspection result will be delivered to the customers by the Internet, precisely speaking, “cloud computing”.
NEC will be entrusted with the inspection from pharmaceutical companies that initiates “order made healthcare”, treatment tailoring to meet constitution of each patients, from summer 2011. From 2012 the company is to be entrusted with the inspection also from hospitals. The company is also to study health check service for individuals; collecting bloods in places such as at super market and send the inspection result to mobile terminal.
2) Fuji Film
Fuji Film integrated an affiliate strong in diagnostic imaging management (located in Indiana) and another affiliate engaged in system supporting diagnostic tasks earlier this month.
Fuji Film had acquired the two affiliates after 2006 and has been supplying systems to approximately 700 U.S. and worldwide healthcare organizations. By integrating the two affiliates, the experts believe that the company is to broaden the range of services to expand their business, so that they can achieve the target of supplying their systems to 1000 organizations very soon.
3. How have the U.S. companies been developing their healthcare IT business?
The U.S. companies of IT and healthcare have been accelerating investment in healthcare IT business. This is because with President Obama’s healthcare reform aims to reduce 32 million citizens without healthcare insurance in the next 10 years, meaning growth of healthcare IT demand such as electronic clinical record.
GE and Intel agreed to integrate their in-home healthcare system business earlier year. They plan to invest more than 250 million USD by 2014 and develop in-home healthcare system for senior citizens and demented patients.
Oracle acquired a software company specialized in healthcare software with 68.5 million USD.
Dell acquired an IT company with 3.9 billion USD to enter electronic clinical record business.
2010年8月29日日曜日
2009年9月21日月曜日
Reality of Aging Society Of Japan
Monday, September 21, 2009 – Osaka, Japan
The third Monday of September is a national holiday of “Respect-for-Senior Citizens Day” in Japan. There have been articles in the newspapers and TV news related to aging society, depicting the reality of the aging society of Japan, whose average age for female is the oldest and is one of the country whose problem of aging society is severe.
Nikkei, Japan's leading newspaper specialized in economy and politics, today reported that according to the survey implemented and analyzed by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) on estimated population as of September 15, senior citizens above 65 years old increased from 2008 by 800,000 people reaching the highest in the history which is 28.98 million people, even though population of 15-64 years old decreased by 760,000 people from 2008 to 81.56 million people. This is 22.7% of the total population, which is 0.6 point increase from 2008. The female senior citizen over 65 years old is more than 25% of the total population.
Moreover, the household with such senior citizen is 18.21 million, which is increase by 1.8 million from 5 years ago. This includes 4.14 households in which a senior citizen lives on his/her own, meaning higher possibility of solitary death.
TV news this morning reported a few senior citizens full of vitality, both physically and mentally. A 103 year old man looks after himself, leading extremely healthy live including shaving and taking a towel bath of cold water which is known as very good for health. His dining habit is also good; he eats balanced diet cuisines of appropriate quantity, and chews at least 30 times before swallowing. He is fluent in 5 languages and enjoys calligraphy. He says that the secret of being physically and mentally healthy is having something to live for.
A woman of 87 year old is, surprisingly, an active athlete, specialized in 200 metres. She is a record holder of 200 metres for Japanese women over 65 years old of approximately 46 seconds. She started to sprint in earnest when a relay member was desperately needed in a sports day when she was 70 years old and she joined extemporarily. Since then, she has been doing training to sprint everyday and participating in various competitions, giving smashing results. She says that she would like to keep on running as long as she is physically healthy.
The aging society is a big issue in Japan. Because of this issue, the former government established a health care system for the latter-stage elderly in 2008, which had been a topic under hot discussion in the General Election held in August 30. Mr. Nagatsuma, the new Health, Labour and Welfare Minister (nicknamed “Mr. Pension” because he had been asking tough questions on pension before the new government was kicked off), announced recently that this policy will be change/terminated.
The new policy would have direct impact on the senior citizens and on healthcare industry. Of course, the aging society would have impact on overall society, economy, and labour market. Whatever the policy and regulation of the new government may be, it seems that senior citizens cannot simply segmented by their age group and more flexibility is desired.
The third Monday of September is a national holiday of “Respect-for-Senior Citizens Day” in Japan. There have been articles in the newspapers and TV news related to aging society, depicting the reality of the aging society of Japan, whose average age for female is the oldest and is one of the country whose problem of aging society is severe.
Nikkei, Japan's leading newspaper specialized in economy and politics, today reported that according to the survey implemented and analyzed by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) on estimated population as of September 15, senior citizens above 65 years old increased from 2008 by 800,000 people reaching the highest in the history which is 28.98 million people, even though population of 15-64 years old decreased by 760,000 people from 2008 to 81.56 million people. This is 22.7% of the total population, which is 0.6 point increase from 2008. The female senior citizen over 65 years old is more than 25% of the total population.
Moreover, the household with such senior citizen is 18.21 million, which is increase by 1.8 million from 5 years ago. This includes 4.14 households in which a senior citizen lives on his/her own, meaning higher possibility of solitary death.
TV news this morning reported a few senior citizens full of vitality, both physically and mentally. A 103 year old man looks after himself, leading extremely healthy live including shaving and taking a towel bath of cold water which is known as very good for health. His dining habit is also good; he eats balanced diet cuisines of appropriate quantity, and chews at least 30 times before swallowing. He is fluent in 5 languages and enjoys calligraphy. He says that the secret of being physically and mentally healthy is having something to live for.
A woman of 87 year old is, surprisingly, an active athlete, specialized in 200 metres. She is a record holder of 200 metres for Japanese women over 65 years old of approximately 46 seconds. She started to sprint in earnest when a relay member was desperately needed in a sports day when she was 70 years old and she joined extemporarily. Since then, she has been doing training to sprint everyday and participating in various competitions, giving smashing results. She says that she would like to keep on running as long as she is physically healthy.
The aging society is a big issue in Japan. Because of this issue, the former government established a health care system for the latter-stage elderly in 2008, which had been a topic under hot discussion in the General Election held in August 30. Mr. Nagatsuma, the new Health, Labour and Welfare Minister (nicknamed “Mr. Pension” because he had been asking tough questions on pension before the new government was kicked off), announced recently that this policy will be change/terminated.
The new policy would have direct impact on the senior citizens and on healthcare industry. Of course, the aging society would have impact on overall society, economy, and labour market. Whatever the policy and regulation of the new government may be, it seems that senior citizens cannot simply segmented by their age group and more flexibility is desired.
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