Australia-based healthcare analytics startup Prospection has announced the opening of its Japan headquarters, and appointment of health informatics and pharmaceutical veteran Kaoru Sato to lead the company’s first global office.

The new office in Tokyo will enable the startup to work closely with international pharmaceutical customers to understand and develop new treatment pathways for Japanese patients.

Sato has been appointed as Director of Customer Success and will lead the company’s Japan operations. Prospection says it plans to hire 15 staff over the next year in Japan, including customer success and delivery experts. 

The business has previously worked with pharmaceutical clients in China and Korea, and with regional offices providing analytics insights using real world evidence to support feasibility assessments for the Japan and Asia Pacific Region, but this move marks the company’s first local office outside Australia.

THE LARGER TREND

In February, Prospection raised A$10 million in its first external funding round, led by Main Sequence Ventures’ CSIRO Innovation Fund and Horizons Ventures, MobiHealthNews reported. The startup has two main products/platforms listed on their website – its flagship platform PharmDash, which was developed in-house and launched in 2012, analyzes what drugs a patient’s taking, how they progress through different treatments, and how the drugs help them treat their disease.

The other platform is PharmMap, which allows users to integrate commercial and operational data to a single view using geospatial mapping algorithms.

ON THE RECORD

“As one of the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world, Japan has incredibly rich datasets, helping to inform Prospection’s predictive analytic tools and resulting in more accurate patient diagnostics and outcomes."

“Our recent funding has enabled us to invest in machine learning R&D, improving versions of our PharmMap and PharmDash products, as well as facilitating our Asian expansion. We’re excited to be opening our first office outside of Australia with Kaoru Sato’s expertise and ultimately providing improved outcomes to more patients across the region,” said Eric Chung, CEO and co-founder, Prospection.