Japan Smart Healthy Aging QuickFire Challenge

Japan Smart Healthy Aging QuickFire Challenge

Overview

By 2050, one in four people in the Asia Pacific region will be over 60 years old, with their senior population expected to triple to almost 1.3 billion between 2010 and 2050. Japan is considered the “oldest” country in the world, with an elderly population of almost 30 percent of its total inhabitants.

About 63 percent of people aged 65 and older in Japan suffer from multimorbidity, the co-occurrence of two or more chronic conditions. Multimorbidity is a growing concern worldwide, reported to be associated with functional decline, decreased quality of life, and possibly even higher mortality.

As Japan’s disease burden is expected to increase, we must turn our attention to helping increase healthy life expectancy, through the prevention, interception and curing of noncommunicable diseases, responsible for 79% of all deaths.

To inspire smart healthy aging potential solutions, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, together with The Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies1 in Japan is proud to launch the Japan Smart Healthy Aging QuickFire Challenge.

Innovators from across the globe are invited to submit promising science or technologies that aim to potentially increase healthy life expectancy - to help people live longer, happier lives.

The innovator(s) with the best potential solution will receive grant funding from a total pool of $300,000, access to Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s Asia Pacific ecosystem including a dedicated workstation for one year at JLABS @ Shanghai, and mentorship from experts across the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies (Johnson & Johnson).

Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K., Johnson & Johnson K.K. Medical Company and Vision Care Company
Subject to the execution of the necessary documentation and (award) agreements.

Why this challenge matters to us

Johnson & Johnson’s Smart Healthy Aging Initiative, a cross-sector initiative by the Japan Presidents Council, aims to help improve the lives of the elderly by connecting other partners from hospital institutions, academia, government, business and the healthcare industry to expand both the breadth and depth of J&J’s offerings with the goal of delivering a truly holistic approach to Healthy Aging.

We aim to identify and catalyze cross-disciplinary ideas with the patient journey as our guide. Innovations range from potential solutions that aim to accelerate early detection and intervention to ideas that can improve adherence to treatment and lower the risk of recurrence.

By uniting the entire healthcare ecosystem to target complex disease areas with a multidisciplinary approach, our goal is to discover the next most impactful potential solution.

What we’re looking for

Innovators from across the globe are invited to submit promising science or technologies that aim to potentially increase healthy life expectancy to help people live longer, happier lives.

Potential solutions should focus on the areas of preventing, intercepting, and curing complex disease to deliver a truly holistic approach to healthy aging. We have a particular interest in the following areas:

Vision, areas including

Cataract surgery and corneal refractive surgery including amongst others:

Intraocular lenses (IOL’s): Extending range and quality of vision, accommodation and adjustability

Novel refractive surgery technologies

Streamlining cataract and refractive surgical work flow for improved efficiency and patient outcomes

Contact lens technologies including amongst others:

Novel presbyopia solutions for improved range of vision

Presbyopia patient screening and fitting methods to improve eye care practitioner (ECP) fitting success

Improve patient experience and vision outcomes with multifocal lenses

Light management approaches to improve vision and ocular health
​​​​​​​

Ocular drug delivery technologies for anterior and posterior segment diseases and ocular health

Oncology: Technologies and novel approaches to improve the management of Bladder, Lung, Colorectal, and hematological cancers, such as:

Development of digital biomarkers: Physiologic (i.e., biometric based) and QoL (e.g.,ADLs, emotional wellbeing) driven endpoints; ePROs, biometric

Remote monitoring solutions to support decentralized clinical trials and remote patient care, including home testing for treatment response / adverse events

Technologies that improve prognostic forecast, treatment selection, or overall patient stratification, E.g., Computer vision algorithms applied to digitized histopathology or radiology data

Approaches for engaging with aging populations for the generation of rich longitudinal RWE and recruitment to clinical trials, with connectivity to additional data sources/types such as EHR, imaging, speech, video, etc. (not just patient reported)

Orthopedics including osteoarthritis:

Validated novel technologies that can predict early onset stage of osteoarthritis

Products/Technologies to predict post-operative outcomes and quality of life

Products/Technologies to promote recovery through individualized comprehensive pre-operative and post-operative programs (e.g. Physical and psychological)

Digital surgery: Technologies (Advanced visualization, Artificial intelligence, robotics, AR/VR/XR) that enable minimally invasive and/or shorter procedure time, which lead to safer and better patient experience and outcomes.

Neurovascular: Early detection of stroke and determination of hemorrhagic or ischemic classification

Fast, easy and minimally invasive screening for stroke risk and vascular disease

Criteria

Potential solutions will be evaluated by a panel of reviewers and judges on their ability to meet the following criteria:

Potential impact and relevance to elderly populations

Uniqueness of potential solution & level of competition in current market

Quality & feasibility of technology

Team credibility & capabilities

Potential solution is validated

Idea submission outlines interest in the innovation ecosystem in Japan

Ability to realize returns in the next 2 to 3 years

Awards

Grant funding from a total pool of
$300,000

Virtual access to Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS Asia Pacific community including a dedicated workstation for one year at JLABS @ Shanghai
Mentorship from experts across the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies


How to Apply

For more information and job application details, see; Japan Smart Healthy Aging QuickFire Challenge

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