Hot Japanese Stocks and Entertainment

Eisai Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Tokyo, CEO: Haruo Naito, “Eisai”) and Biogen Inc. (Nasdaq: BIIB, Corporate headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts, CEO: Christopher A. Viehbacher, “Biogen”) announced that the humanized anti-soluble aggregated amyloid-beta (Aβ) monoclonal antibody “LEQEMBI®” has been launched in South Korea. LEQEMBI received the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) approval in May 2024 for treatment in adult patients with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or mild AD dementia (early AD). LEQEMBI selectively binds to soluble Aβ aggregates (protofibrils*), as well as insoluble Aβ aggregates (fibrils) which are a major component of Aβ plaques in AD, thereby reducing both Aβ protofibrils and Aβ plaques in the brain. LEQEMBI is the first approved treatment shown to reduce the rate of disease progression and to slow cognitive and functional decline through this mechanism. It is estimated there were approximately 900,000 dementia patients in South Korea...

AI chip startup Gemesys raises €8.6m pre-seed round, led by Atlantic Labs and Amadeus Apex Technology Fund. Sony Innovation Fund participated in the funding round. The company says it's seeking to reduce the energy consumption of training and running AI models by 10,000 times by having chipsets with trained AI models run directly on smartphones and other devices, without the need to transmit any raw data to a data center. It is currently working with three pilot customers in energy grid, hearing implants and security.