國際再生醫學產學合作 (Osaka University & Middle East)

Osaka University to pitch regenerative medicine to Middle East December 25, 2013By KATSUHIKO TAGAYA/ Senior Staff Writer OSAKA--Osaka University is looking toward the Middle East as it attempts to turn its advanced regenerative medical techniques into a profitable business.It plans to accept patients from the region, send its physicians there and also help establish a health-care center. The university also intends in the future to export its pricy, leading-edge technologies to the Middle East, which is awash with oil money. Whereas Japanese universities have offered medical techniques to other countries in the form of studies or economic assistance, it is rare for a domestic university to commercially provide cutting-edge technologies overseas. As a first step, Yoshiki Sawa, a professor and cardiovascular surgeon at Osaka University, will treat a patient from Qatar, who has thin cardiac muscles and decreased capacity to pump blood, next month in Japan.The professor will culture muscle cells collected from the patient's thigh into sheets, and transplant them on the heart to restore its function. Working with Emergency Assistance Japan Co., a Tokyo-based firm that helps domestic medical institutions accept cases from abroad, Osaka University plans to admit more Middle Eastern patients to enhance relations with local health-care centers and other bodies.Osaka University also intends to support a Qatari government-affiliated foundation to establish a center for regenerative medicine and cell sheets, to begin culturing cell sheets and treating patients in Qatar in four years.Revenues from those businesses will be used for future research and studies.Working with the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Osaka University will help medical instrument firms expand their businesses to countries in the Middle East, providing cultivation equipment, clean rooms and other necessary devices for those nations.The university is weighing exporting its regenerative medical techniques as well.Among candidates for exports is a method to treat those at risk of vision loss due to corneal diseases by transplanting cultured mucosal cells taken from the patient's mouth, as well as a technology to restore chondrocytes using cells collected from the knee. The vision loss treatment method was developed by Koji Nishida, an ophthalmology professor at Osaka University.The university is discussing with the Qatari side how to allow Japanese doctors sent from the university to practice medicine in the country, as many of its physicians do not have medical licenses approved by Qatar's government.Regenerative treatments typically cost several millions of yen (several tens of thousands of dollars). Thus, although a huge investment will inevitably be needed to export technologies and medical devices as well as dispatching doctors to countries far from Japan, Osaka University believes that it can recoup its initial outlay and turn a profit relatively easily.Middle Eastern nations also hope to obtain support from Japan rather than from Western nations."Islamic prayer demands people sit in a position similar to Japanese 'seiza' (formal way of sitting)," said a source involved with the Middle East. "While treatment for the knee is aimed at allowing patients to sit on chairs in the United States and European countries, Japanese approaches are intended to enable patients to sit in the seiza position. Thus Japanese ways will be better."By KATSUHIKO TAGAYA/ Senior Staff Write