Dr. Ryo Kubota is the Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Kubota Vision Inc. He is also the Representative Executive Officer, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of its parent company, Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings Co., Ltd., in Tokyo, Japan, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market (Tokyo 4596).
Dr. Kubota is an ophthalmologist by training who has performed more than one thousand eye surgeries. Dr. Kubota spent his early career performing ocular research at Keio University in Japan, where he earned his MD and PhD degrees. While at Keio University, he discovered the glaucoma causing gene, myocilin, a discovery that earned him the Suda Award for his contribution to the field of neurodegenerative retinal diseases. Dr. Kubota continued his research at the University of Washington and later licensed his findings from the university as the core technology on which he founded Kubota Vision in 2002 in Seattle to develop novel therapeutics for patients with blinding eye diseases. Then in 2014, Kubota Vision made a successful IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers Board. Dr. Kubota has raised over $450 million in total for Kubota Vision.
In December 2016, following a redomicile transaction, Kubota Vision Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings Co., Ltd. (Kubota Pharma) of Japan, and Kubota Pharma listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers Board. Kubota Pharma is now listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market due to the Tokyo Stock Exchange market restructuring in 2022. Kubota Pharma group is committed to translating innovation into a diverse portfolio of drugs and devices to preserve and restore vision for millions of people worldwide. Kubota Pharma group’s development pipeline includes a wearable device for myopia control using Kubota Glass technology and a handheld OCT device for the monitoring of neovascular retinal diseases, to be used directly by patients.
Dr. Kubota has completed the Harvard Business School Executive Education Leadership and Strategy in Pharmaceutical and Biotech Program. He served as a faculty member at Keio University and at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Additionally, he was a visiting professor at the School of Medicine at Keio University from 2014 to 2021. He was board certified in ophthalmology by the Japanese Ophthalmological Society in 1996 and is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), the Japanese Ophthalmology Society, Keio Medical Society, the American Chamber of Commerce Japan (ACCJ), and the America-Japan Society, Inc. Since 2008, Dr. Kubota has been a director of the Japan-America Society of the State of Washington and rejoined as a director of Seattle Symphony in 2019. He is an official columnist for Forbes Japan and the Japan Times, as well as an editorial member of the newspaper for Keio University, School of Medicine. In 2019, he was appointed as a NASA Human Research Program (HRP) Investigator.