Human Life CORD Japan

The Story

Medicine has been treating the wrong moment and it's time to start at the beginning.

Years ago, I met an eleven-year-old boy in the United States. He had a congenital genetic disorder so severe that his body could not survive the chemotherapy needed before a bone marrow transplant, which was his only real hope. Then he was treated with mesenchymal stromal cells from placental tissue that would ordinarily have been discarded at birth. His condition stabilised and he went into full remission.

When people ask why I founded Human Life CORD Japan, I often tell them about that boy. But the truth is, meeting him was the catalyst that connected everything that had come before.

Long before that encounter, at the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo, I had worked with umbilical cord–derived cells as experimental material. My mentor there, the late Professor Shigetaka Asano, was advancing the true clinical implementation of mesenchymal stromal cells with relentless energy, and his conviction shaped mine more deeply than I understood at the time. I never imagined then that I would one day start a company of my own.

I had spent my career in pharmaceutical development, watching medicine fight disease only after it had already taken hold. Meeting that boy was the moment every one of these threads - my research, my mentor’s vision and my years in drug development - finally came together. The tools to interrupt chronic and degenerative disease may have been present from the very beginning of life, hidden in biology we routinely throw away. From that moment, I knew this was the work I wanted to dedicate my life to.

Umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (UC-MSCs) are among the most compelling answers to some of the world’s most pressing health challenges. Clinical evidence is steadily building across a range of conditions that represent a significant global disease burden. These include type 2 diabetes, where a growing body of international research suggests that UC-MSCs may help reduce insulin resistance and improve glycaemic control; steroid-refractory graft-versus-host disease, where clinical trials have demonstrated meaningful response rates; sarcopenia, the age-related muscle loss recognised by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a chronic disease; and pulmonary complications following bone marrow transplantation, which is the lead program we are advancing towards Phase III clinical trials in Japan.

What makes UC-MSCs distinctive goes beyond their therapeutic range. They are derived from tissue collected non-invasively at birth, carry low immunogenicity, expand reliably under Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) conditions and do not trigger the ethical complexity of other cell sources. As the science advances, our focus is translating it into a stable, quality-controlled, scalable supply of UC-MSC therapies that can serve more people, before they become patients.

Our partnership with Abu Dhabi Biobank represents an opportunity to answer questions we cannot answer in Japan alone. It extends our work into a new geography with the scientific infrastructure needed to translate regenerative medicine at scale.

Abu Dhabi Biobank operates one of the region's most advanced biospecimen repositories with over 100,000 cord blood samples, automated cryogenic storage and integrated genomic and real-world clinical data. That data matters, particularly in a region shaped by genetic profiles underrepresented in global trials. Therapies developed without those populations represented in the evidence will inevitably underserve the people who need them most.

Our mission has always been simple: to make growing older more enjoyable. Every human life begins with an umbilical cord. It is time it also shapes how those lives age.

Human Life CORD Japan Inc., a Tokyo-based regenerative medicine company is pioneering the clinical development and global deployment of umbilical cord–derived mesenchymal stromal cell therapies.