[Podcast] Japanese technology to supercharge human fertility (Part 1)

Japan’s declining birth rate makes global headlines, but most of the developed world will soon be facing the same problem.

The real solution involves a lot of social and economic changes, but as you’ll see, technology has a huge role to play as well.

Today we sit down and talk with Kaz Kishida, CEO of Dioseve, about how their technology promises to transform IVF, the rapid timeline for global rollout, and safety issues and ethnical questions involved.

It’s a great conversation, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Welcome to Disrupting Japan, Straight Talk from Japan’s most innovative founders and VCs.

I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.

Today we’re going to talk about making babies.

Now, this is not something that startups or startup podcasts normally weighed into, but as you’ll see in this case, it makes a lot of sense.

Today we sit down with Kaz Kishida, co-founder and CEO of Dioseve. And Dioseve has developed a technique for growing mature human eggs from IPS cells. Now, this technology represents a huge step forward for IVF and for human fertility in general.

Some parts of Dioseve’s technology could be in commercial use as soon as next year.

Now, kaz, I dive deep into Dioseve’s technology and the potential good it can do and why some future babies will have three parents. We also cover the tricky ethical and safety issues involved, and we explore exactly why that, in spite of all Japan has going for it. The biotech startup ecosystem here is still facing challenges.

But, you know, Kaz, tells that story much better than I can.

So, let’s get right to the interview.

Tim: So, we’re sitting here with Kaz Kishida of Dioseve who’s helping to address fertility by using stem cells to create fertilizer eggs. So, thanks for sitting down with us.

Kaz: Thank you very much for having me.

Tim: Now I gave a very high level description of what you do in the intro, but can you explain it a little better than I can?

Kaz: Okay. So, our company has technology to induce IPS cells and to another types of cells, including eggs and ovarian cells. Most of their cells are related to germ cells and reproduction.

Tim: Well, this technique’s not yet used in fertility treatments. But it’s something in the future that holds a lot of potential.

Kaz: Right, right. Currently, like In Vitro fertilization, the success rate is still remarkably low. And sometimes that vitamin journey is tough. But if we can deliver our products, say IPS cell derived ovarian cells, then the IVFs will be more accessible and the success rate will be enhanced so many women and can have their children using our technology.

Tim: So why would the success rate be enhanced from using these eggs produced from stem cells as opposed to eggs harvested from the women directly?

Kaz: So, in the standard protocol of In Vitro fertilization, the first step is to retrieve eggs from women. And then in many cases, those eggs are immature and immature eggs can’t be fertilized with sperm. So, we can mature those immature eggs and we can make mature eggs, which can be used for fertilization. So, it directly enhance their success rate of IVF. Let me clarify that. And we have two technologies. The first one is create egg itself, but the other one is create ovaries, ovarian cells from IPS cells. Of course, if we create eggs, we can use those eggs for fertilization directly. But the other product, IPS cell derived ovarian cells that can support current In vitro fertilization procedure.

Tim: And actually I was surprised at how common IVF is in Japan.

Kaz: Yes, yes.

Tim: 7% of all babies are born from IVF now.

Kaz: Right, right. Over 60 K babies are born by IVF.

Tim: So, what’s driving that trend in Japan?

Kaz: Strong tendency is increased age of married and having the first child. Before time, there are average was 29 years old, but now, and the first baby will be born in later stage of women’s career and life stage. Of course the age is strongly rated to the pregnancy, and it is getting harder to get pregnant when women ages. That is biggest reason.

Tim: It seems like Japan is really number one in the percentage of IVF births. But is the average age that women have their first children significantly higher in Japan than other nations?

Kaz: Comparing to the US, yes. Their first child comes in the later stage for women.

Tim: Oh, okay. Well, before we get deep into the technology and your go-to market plans, I want to take a step back and talk about you. So, you graduated from Waseda back in 2020, you went into investment banking. And so what led you from investment banking into Dioseve?

Kaz: The fact is I already decided to start my own company when I was in my high school. And when I was in my university, I experienced some internships in some startups. And after that I noticed that their main job of CEO in a startup is to raise money.

Tim: That’s an important one. Yeah.

Kaz: Yes. And I thought, okay, what is the best way to learn finance? I thought, okay, investment banking. That’s why I decided to go investment bank.

Tim: But that didn’t last very long.

Kaz: Yeah, I’m sorry for the company, but I learned finance, and I exited. Like I resigned. But I already declared that I will have my own company in the near future when I got an interview. And the company said, okay. Yes. So yeah, I joined them.

Tim: So they probably just didn’t think it was going to be in like two years.

Kaz: Yeah.

Tim: So, how did you come together with Dioseve? Why this area?

Kaz: Okay. As I said I decided to start up my company when I was in my high school and I was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, and there is a kind of potential liver cancer. And my parent had that disease, and back then there was no treatment. But the doctor said, in three years, the new drug will come to Japan. And I waited for three years, and the doctor said, yes, now we have the treatment. And surprisingly, the drug has super good effect on hepatitis C. Actually, I, my parent and my grandparent all totally cured. So, I was amazed and I felt, okay, my life was saved by biotechnology. So, it’s turn for me to save others by starting new biotech company.

Tim: What did you study medicine or biology at university?

Kaz: No. I studied geology.

Tim: Geology.

Kaz: Yeah. Totally different.

Tim: Alright. So, how did you meet your founding team members?

Kaz: VC called ANRI introduced me to Dr. Hamazaki, and we got along together and I said, okay, how about establishing our company? And he said, yes, let’s do that.

Tim: So, of the founding team, are you the only one without a medical background?

Kaz: Right.

Tim: It’s just you.

Kaz: Yeah. But as you can imagine, the finance is super important for startup.

Tim: Well, no, I think that’s a really important step. In fact, over the last 10 years in particular one of the most important things I’ve seen for Japan’s deep tech startups is that, I mean, 10 years ago, it was just kind of assumed that the professor would be the CEO.

Kaz: Yes. Yes.

Tim: And that’s changing, and that’s a terrible model because academics tend to be horrible CEOs. That seems to be changing recently.

Kaz: Yes. I think so.

Tim: Let’s talk a little more about the technology and the positioning in the market. Women in developed nations around the world are having children later in life. This is such an important social problem everywhere. And IVF was first introduced in the 1980s, and it’s been hugely successful, but it doesn’t seem like we’ve seen a whole lot of innovation in the last 40 years. Why is that?

Kaz: You’re correct. First of all, the invention of IVF was super innovative. After that, there was not many rooms for improvement because get eggs, fertilize is just super simple. But there was not many things we can do for that process. But the last and biggest room was maturation because eggs can be functional only after getting matured, IPS cell technology enabled to do that.

Tim: So other than that, maturation, everything else about the system is pretty optimal.

Kaz: Every doctor has their own opinion and every doctor thinks their protocol is optimal. But at least like ICSI, ICSI is a second innovation I think regarding IVF. ICSI is a kind of procedure which inserts sperm to eggs directly. Before time we just put sperm and egg to one dish and waiting for the fertilization. But in 1990s they did ICSI and that dramatically enhanced and the fertilization rate.

In the next part, we will discuss the safety and ethical considerations of reproductive medicine using iPS cells, as well as Dioseve’s plans for expansion into the UK market.

Top photo: Photo courtesy of Disrupting Japan

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