Development story of Moldcare

03. Marketing as a global product

We visited some national universities and the National Cancer Center many times for evaluation of our product samples for the head and neck. At the time we were told that the product would not be used widely in Japan if it is marketed and that the field of radiotherapy would not be the main offset in Japan because radiotherapy is an adjunct approach and resection by surgeons is a more popular treatment option. In fact, we presented the product at various academic exhibitions at meetings of the Japanese Society for Radiation Oncology (JASTRO) and others, but we felt that it would be a small market if limited only to domestic sales in Japan. On the other hand, we were advised about the selling approach of firstly marketing the product overseas, including the US, where there is a greater need for radiotherapy, and then to reverse-import into Japan because initial release in Japan would not assure successful sales. We thus considered to work with a partner and decided to tie up with a trading company with a strong overseas presence to initially sell the product on overseas markets and to then reimport it back into Japan.