CIC Japan (Headquarters: Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Denise Medlenka), in collaboration with Nippon Life Insurance Company (President: Tomoshi Asahi), is scheduled to open "Osaka Life Science Nexus by Nippon Life and CIC" (hereinafter "O-Nexus"), a life science-specialized innovation campus, on May 28, 2026, at the Nakanoshima Qross (Nakanoshima Cross) International Future Medical Hub in Nakanoshima, Osaka.
Prior to this opening, we are pleased to announce the appointment of O-Nexus's Site Director and the facility logo.
Additionally, we are currently accepting internal tours for companies and research institutions considering tenancy.
### **Regarding the Appointment of O-Nexus Director**
Prior to the opening of O-Nexus, Emi Ishitobi will assume the position of Director, Corporate Partnership & Site Director, O-Nexus, effective April 1, 2026.
This appointment aims to strengthen partnerships in the Kansai region and create a global hub for Japan-born life sciences, while also accelerating the creation and growth support of startups in the life science domain.
### **Biography of Emi Ishitobi**
Based in Osaka and Kansai, she has been involved in startup support at Osaka Innovation Hub for approximately 10 years. She specializes in planning and operating pitch events and international conferences in the tech and startup fields, partner collaborations, and community building, working to create platforms that connect startups with domestic and international partner companies and organizations.
### **Appointment Comment**
As I take on the significant responsibility of Site Director for Osaka Life Science Nexus, I strongly feel the weight of its role and responsibilities. Leveraging my experience in startup support and community management cultivated in Osaka and Kansai, I aim to further accelerate the creation of a 'place' and 'connections' where entrepreneurs, researchers, companies, government bodies, and support organizations in the life science field naturally gather and generate collaborations. We will wholeheartedly dedicate ourselves to building an ecosystem for Osaka-born innovation to take flight domestically and internationally, and together with the team, we will continue to strive for Osaka Life Science Nexus to be recognized as a hub 'where it all begins.'
### **About the O-Nexus Logo**
Coinciding with the opening of O-Nexus, a logo embodying the facility's concept has been created. The logo was designed by Tamotsu Shimada, an art director/graphic designer who also worked on the official logo mark for the Osaka-Kansai Expo.
### **Creator Profile | Tamotsu Shimada**
He has worked on designs in various fields, including corporate advertising, sales promotion, and VI, as well as public events and stores. He has received numerous awards both domestically and internationally, including the New York ADC Gold Award in 2009. In 2020, as the representative of TEAM INARI*, he was selected for the Grand Prize in the competition for the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo logo mark.
* TEAM INARI Composed of representative Tamotsu Shimada, copywriter Shinya Uemura, and designers Miyuki Amemiya, Nobuhiko Oimata, Yusuke Fujisawa, and illustrator Yuki Nunokawa.
### **Comment from Tamotsu Shimada**
It is a great honor to be involved in this project following the Osaka-Kansai Expo. The logo expresses how local ideas spread through overlapping circles, forming connections between people and creating great value. These connections symbolize the process of creating a "circle of wisdom" that will give rise to new medical and healthcare innovations. Furthermore, by expressing people joining hands from an aerial perspective, it embodies the idea that each individual's small discovery leads to progress for society as a whole. We expect this facility to become an innovation hub that promotes healthcare businesses and spreads from Osaka to the world.
### **O-Nexus Concept**
Osaka Life Science Nexus by Nippon Life and CIC (O-Nexus) is a hub where technologies, services, and wisdom contributing to the extension of healthy lifespans, centered on life sciences, gather and are implemented into society. Nakanoshima, Osaka, has a history dating back to the late Edo period with Ogata Koan's promotion of Western medicine, and in modern times, as a cornerstone of Japan's rapid economic growth, it has accumulated social infrastructure functions such as finance, research, medicine, and academia, playing a role in connecting industries and technologies to society. It has supported research and development and manufacturing sites, serving as a place where decision-making and knowledge intersect, underpinning Japan's modernization and industrial development.
O-Nexus aims to inherit the "soil where people, knowledge, and capital converge" that Nakanoshima has cultivated, and become a representative life science nexus in Japan that will lead the next phase of Japan's growth, serving as a launching pad to connect challenges from within Japan and around the world to the global stage.
Researchers, startups, large corporations, universities, medical institutions, investors, and government bodies will gather beyond their traditional boundaries, and through serendipitous encounters and practical collaborations, new technologies and services will be born. O-Nexus is not a closed research facility but is designed as an "open place" that connects society and industry. Its mission is to update Nakanoshima's role in social implementation with modern life sciences, connecting technologies and values that support Japan's future to the world. O-Nexus aims to be that nexus.
### **Facility Overview (3100 sq m)**
* Private offices: 123 individual rooms (1 to 15 people) *some offices can be connected to adjacent rooms * Coworking spaces: 25 seats * Meeting rooms: 14 * Phone booths: 13 (including 1 wheelchair-accessible booth)
### **Contact for Tour Inquiries**
O-Nexus Sales Team
E-mail: o-nexus@cic.com
TEL: 070-4323-0829
Click here for tour applications in Japanese
Click here to schedule a tour in English
FACT BOX
- Source: PR TIMES
- Category: News