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Alfons Nonell Canals, Mind the Byte (Photo: Daniel Portales, Parc Científic de Barcelona)
 17.10.2016

Bioinformatics Mind the Byte enters the Japanese market

Mind the Byte, a bioinformatics computational design company dedicated to pharmaceuticals products through big data and machine learning, has signed a distribution agreement with the Japanese company Filgen to access the bioinformatics market in Japan. Located at Parc Científic of Barcelona, the company expects to reach a turnover of 1.2 million Euros in 2020 in this country, a market it had no commercial presence until now.

 

The Catalan company has formalized its commercial entry into Japan this week, taking advantage of BioJapan, the biotech fair held in Yokohama, east of Japan, considered to be the largest in Asia in this sector. Contacts to close this agreement began during a project ACCIÓ undertook in Japan last year: “It’s the third time we have been to Japan, and the interviews we had this week denote that perseverance and confidence are key. These contacts have nothing to do with the first approach we had a year and a half ago” explains Afons-Nonell Canals, founder and CEO of the Catalan company.

Mind the Byte has participated in this event in a stand together with ACCIÓ and Biocat, located at PCB. It is estimated that the 19th edition of the BioJapan was attended by 15,000 professionals, business executive leaders and scientists who have held over 8,000 business meetings all together.

Taking advantage of the presence in Japan, the Catalan companies have also traveled to the Osaka region, which boasts one of the main hubs of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry in the region. The aim of the trade mission has been that Catalan companies start or strengthen their presence in Japan, the second largest pharmaceutical market in the world and leader in imports in the biotechnology sector.

According Nonell-Canals, Japan “is a very large and mature market in the field of biotechnology.” Although he admits he is cautious because “we are small and we are in a phase of development”,  Nonell-Canals affirms it is a “key” country, as the global market of bioinformatics in Japan, “is expected to grow 21%  by  2020 “.