Suzuken, the Japan-based pharmaceutical wholesaler, is set to launch a corporate venture capital (CVC) fund in July to invest in healthcare technology developers.
The fund will have capital of up to ¥5bn ($39.3m) and will be funded by a capital call scheme through Suzuken Investment, a subsidiary which will be overseen by the firm’s head of corporate strategy, Yuichi Yamamoto.
Suzuken’s fund will be the latest in what is becoming one of the most active corporate venturing ecosystems globally, as Global Corporate Venturing’s Japanese innovative region report found last month.
Last year, deal volume involving corporates in Japan reached nearly $70bn across 1,222 deals, up from $23bn across 891 deals in the covid-dominated 2020 and represented a substantial growth from the pre-pandemic year of 2019, which logged $47bn across 767 deals.
Founded in 1932, Suzuken is one of the major drug wholesalers in Japan. The group is also involved in research, development and production of new therapeutics, working closely together with pharmaceutical manufacturers, insurers, pharmacies and nursing care providers.
The firm has made strategic investments in companies such as healthcare app operator Susmed, inventory management tool developer Smart Shopping and Doctors, which is working on medical digitalisation technology.
Suzuken is in the process of ramping up collaboration and partnership initiatives with innovative companies, especially in the digital domain. In March this year, it formed two subsidiaries for this purpose: healthcare platform proposal unit Collabo-Create and CollaboPlace, which concentrates on the development and operation of such platforms.
Image courtesy of Suzuken Co, Ltd.