Nomura Holdings Inc and Keio University are investing in a startup that is seeking to revolutionize how smokers quit the habit.
CureApp Inc, which develops mobile applications to treat ailments including tobacco addiction, received ￥380 million (US$3.4 million) this month from investors, including Nomura and Keio’s venture-capital partnership, the startup’s founder and chief executive officer Kohta Satake said in an interview.
An SBI Holdings Inc unit also contributed, and CureApp will use the funds to develop products and expand in the US, he said.
The venture’s success hinges on whether the anti-smoking app receives government permission for use as a treatment that’s eligible for coverage under Japan’s health-insurance program.
If it is approved, doctors will be able to prescribe the software, which provides users with real-time feedback on their telephones to resist the urge to smoke.
Japanese authorities revised the pharmaceutical law in 2014 to allow mobile apps to be recognized as medical devices, though none have achieved that designation yet, according to Satake.
CureApp’s product is currently being trialed and Satake, 34, a physician specializing in respiratory medicine, expects it to be approved by 2019.
“The company is very popular among investors and there was stiff competition to provide funding,” said Kotaro Yamagishi, chief executive of Keio Innovation Initiative Inc, the partnership between the Tokyo-based university and Nomura.
“We expect the app to be authorized for use on the national insurance program and it will be a profitable business,” he said.
CureApp aims to go public in 2020, Satake said.
The startup plans to set up an office in California this year.
It is also seeking to develop apps for patients with fatty-liver disease, diabetes and depression, he added.
Smoking rates in Japan have been declining for years as people become deterred by the health risks, tighter regulations and increases in prices and taxes.
Fewer than a fifth of the adult population now smoke, down from almost half in 1966, according to a Japan Tobacco Inc survey.
About half a million smokers in Japan seek clinical treatment to quit each year, relying partly on brief, infrequent consultations with their doctor, according to Satake.
“Giving up smoking can be a lonely battle,” Satake said.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
It is challenging to build infrastructure in much of Europe. Constrained budgets and polarized politics tend to undermine long-term projects, forcing officials to react to emergencies rather than plan for the future. Not in Austria. Today, the country is to officially open its Koralmbahn tunnel, the 5.9 billion euro (US$6.9 billion) centerpiece of a groundbreaking new railway that will eventually run from Poland’s Baltic coast to the Adriatic Sea, transforming travel within Austria and positioning the Alpine nation at the forefront of logistics in Europe. “It is Austria’s biggest socio-economic experiment in over a century,” said Eric Kirschner, an economist at Graz-based Joanneum
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
RSS