From one handshake to a two-way pipeline: what came out of Osaka

The Roundtable and Workshop, hosted on invitation from Osaka Prefecture – Business and Investment and Nakanoshima Qross, brought cluster leaders together to compare what it actually takes to build and scale healthcare deep tech: regulatory pathways, ecosystem design, and models for international partnership.

The day before, Bernard gave a short presentation on the shared history of Nakanoshima Qross and RegMed XB, a partnership that began with a handshake and a mutual belief in regenerative medicine, grew into a signed MoU, and eventually into the kind of trust that gets you a seat at a table like this one. Telling that story out loud to an international audience was a reminder of how much ground has been covered since those first conversations.

Showing up as an ecosystem

The Roundtable was one part of a six-day Dutch programme in Osaka and the Kansai region. RegMed XB travelled alongside Health Holland, the regional development organizations, and Province of Noord-Brabant and East Netherlands, Rotterdam Square, and TNO's Holst Centre, a delegation representing the full breadth of Dutch life sciences and health.

Bernard specifically invited Ernst Nagel of Health Holland to join him, because it mattered to show up not only as RegMed XB but as the Dutch ecosystem. That is how we work: together.

Over the course of the week the delegation visited the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center (NCVC) and its Open Innovation Center, the National Institute of Health and Nutrition (NIHN), and the Doshomachi pharmaceutical district. There were meetings with Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), with Nakanoshima Qross, and with Plug and Play Japan. Osaka Prefecture and Nakanoshima Qross co-hosted a bilateral event with us to explore a Netherlands–Japan pathway for healthcare startups, and we were honoured to welcome Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama of Osaka to the Dutch Pavilion at WHX.

What happens next

The most important outcome is that the trip did not end in Osaka. Three follow-up moments are now planned:

• October 2026 — Japanese companies visit the Netherlands as part of a joint programme with the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and RegMed XB.
• November 2026 — Japanese startups visit the Netherlands, hosted by Health Holland and RegMed XB.
• January 2027 — RegMed XB brings Dutch startups to Nakanoshima Qross.

Thank you

Our thanks to Osaka Prefecture – Business and Investment, Nakanoshima Qross, Health Holland, and the Consulate-General of the Netherlands in Osaka, in particular Sandra Pellegrom and Naoko Shiraishi, as well as the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Japan, and to Jun Miyagawa, Masakazu Yagi, Okechi Oduori and, of course, the Director of Nakanoshima Qross, Professor Yoshiki Sawa.

Regenerative medicine does not scale on good science alone. It scales on relationships like these. Together we make the impossible possible.