On Thursday, March 11, 2021, Gifu University hosted "Gifu University Business Venture Certification Ceremony" for e-NA Biotec Inc. and xenoBiotic to honor them as certified business ventures born out of Gifu University.

Gifu University has been placing a special emphasis on fostering entrepreneurs, and are actively providing advices for potential start-ups in various business sectors. As a result, we have been seeing more new business ventures launched, and receiving a lot of inquiries concerning entrepreneurship these days.

Gifu University Business Venture Certification system was established in April, 2019 in order to define relationship between Gifu University and business ventures (born out of Gifu University), as well as to provide smooth, strong support for business ventures.

e-NA Biotec Inc. is aiming to commercialize microRNA ("miRNA")* by using the patent obtained by Gifu University, and xenoBiotic has been developing a software to predict toxicity from chemical compound structure formula used in medicine or agricultural chemicals.

The ceremony was attended by Dr. Yukio Kitade (CEO, Professor Emeritus of Gifu University) from e-NA Biotec Inc., and Mr. Toshihiko Sawada (researcher from the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University), and President Hisataka Moriwaki handed out the certificates to the two representatives.

"Gifu University takes pride in its unique support platform under which business ventures born out of Gifu University are allowed to use communal research facilities, labs, etc. on campus. We look forward to further success of the two companies by making the best of university's resources," said President Moriwaki.

With e-NA Biotec Inc. and xenoBiotic granted the certificates on March 11, a total of six new business ventures kicked off from Gifu University to date. We will continue to nurture future entrepreneurs and fulfill our missions of giving our achievements back to the communities.

microRNA ("miRNA")*: a small single-stranded non-coding RNA molecule found in plants, animals and some viruses