Japan-headquartered biotechnology producer Eisai has appointed Manabu Aruga, formerly China-based business development director, as strategic investment officer covering Japan and Asia for its Corporate Venture Investment (CVI) division.
His new role will involve Aruga relocating to Eisai’s headquarters in Tokyo and leading CVI’s investment initiatives. He will collaborate with chief strategy officer Kazumasa Nagayama and chief financial officer Ryohei Yanagi to strengthen the unit’s corporate venturing strategies.
Formed in May 2019, CVI is armed with approximately $137m in capital and partners innovative technology developers in a bid to accelerate Eisai’s drug discovery activities and build an ecosystem around its strategic areas of nervous system disorder and cancer treatments.
The unit has already backed cancer immunotherapy developer Numab Therapeutics and Darmiyan, which is working on an early-stage diagnostics system for Alzheimer’s disease. It also made a limited partner commitment to venture capital firm Catalys Pacific’s $100m healthcare fund in June 2019.
Aruga joins director of corporate venture investment Ryutaro Adachi in CVI’s Tokyo office. It also maintains satellite offices in the US cities of Cambridge, led by Eisai Innovation president Yoshiharu Mizui, and San Francisco, under senior director Shun Asami.
