They Did It — Babies Across the World Win

In a world where data is power, where promise is often talk, some people don’t wait. They step up. They share, they collaborate, they build, for those with no voice. Junko Sato, Hidefumi Nakamura, and their colleagues are those people. Their work through Japan, PMDA, NCCHD, and C-Path’s International Neonatal Consortium (INC) is quietly revolutionary, perhaps merits a Nobel prize, maybe even more.

Here’s what they’ve done, why it matters, and what needs to be told far and wide.

Hidden Giants at C Path

Stepping into C Path felt like stepping into a hidden world of disruptors, people who don’t just say the sky is the limit but prove it isn’t.

I was getting coffee when I ran into a sweet, humble man. We exchanged a quick hello, chatted, and then he went on his way. Later, I walked into my meeting and watched Junko Sato take the stage to speak about her work. What I didn’t realize then was the scale of what she and her colleague, that same humble man Hidefumi Nakamura, had already accomplished.

C Path raved about their groundbreaking collaboration. In a world where health care is fiercely competitive, they chose to collaborate. They chose to share. And they chose to stand up for the most vulnerable among us, the world’s babies.

Their contribution of neonatal data to C Path’s International Neonatal Consortium is nothing short of historic. It is humanitarian. It is Nobel Prize worthy. And yet they remain quiet, modest, and focused on the work.

People like Junko and Hide deserve to go viral. They deserve the world’s applause. Because when they stood up, they didn’t just push science forward, they gave premature infants everywhere a better chance at life.

What They Did

• In December 2022, Japan (via the Neonatal Research Network of Japan, NRNJ) donated properly anonymized electronic patient record (EPR) data from several hospitals (Nagano Children’s Hospital, Kyorin University, Osaka General) to C-Path’s INC platform. This includes over 15,700 individual patient-level records focused on premature infants and the lung disease bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD).

• This was the first time Japan contributed hospital EPR data to INC.

• Other major contributions to INC: U.K.’s National Neonatal Research Database (NNRD), many U.S. EHR datasets via Tufts and I-ACT, and other neonatal registries and clinical trials worldwide.

• Because of this combined data, INC has already integrated “more than 300,000 patient-level data points” (which means many types of measurements/outcomes, labs, etc.), enabling disease modeling (e.g. BPD disease progression), neonatal laboratory value norms by demographic strata, etc.

Why It’s Groundbreaking & Globally Impactful

1. Vulnerable Lives, Better Science and Regulation
   Neonates (especially preterm) are among the most vulnerable, their organs immature, their responses unpredictable. Traditional clinical trials often leave them out or use off-label drugs without good evidence. By pooling global data, one gets statistical power, generalizability, and safer regulatory pathways. Sato, Nakamura, PMDA + NCCHD are helping fill this void.

2. Open, Pre-competitive Collaboration
   This is not about patents or local prestige. Sharing anonymized hospital EHRs, aligning across international regulatory bodies, academic institutions, and industry is hard. Yet this team did it. That sets a template for how rare/difficult medical challenges can be tackled: together.

3. Accelerated Drug Development & Real-World Evidence
   Drugs/safety labeling for neonates often suffers due to lack of data. With this kind of resource, scientists/regulators can build disease-progression models, find histograms of lab values by age/demographic, use historical controls instead of always new trial arms. That accelerates new treatments, better safety dosing, fewer trials, less risk to babies.

4. Proof of Global Trust & Regulatory Harmonization
   PMDA (Japan), FDA, EMA, regulatory science communities are participating in INC. That trust matters. Especially when sharing sensitive health data across borders. It demonstrates that ethical, privacy-protected, regulated approaches can work.

5. Moral Leadership
   In an era of competition, political divisiveness, and sometimes siloed science, this kind of collective commitment to humanity first is inspiring. Babies born prematurely, facing lung disease, having better chances now because of people like this.

Why This Should Be Told Everywhere

• Because people need to know: these things can be done. Collaboration, trust, data sharing, they are possible. When done right, they save lives.

• Because neonatal mortality / morbidity is a global crisis: in many countries, preterm birth complications are among the top causes of death. Having better therapies, knowing what labs look like in different populations, early intervention windows — these matter.

• Because recognition creates momentum. If Junko Sato, Hidefumi Nakamura, NCCHD, PMDA, and their colleagues get global recognition (in medical journals, pop science, social media, public health), it encourages more such collaborations. More institutions share. More data flows. Faster gains.

Closing

These are the kind of people our world needs. Not those seeking applause, but those willing to share what they have, protect privacy, push the science forward. Because of them, babies born too soon have better chances. Because of them, regulatory pathways get clearer. Because of them, the future of neonatal care shifts. Let’s recognize them now. They deserve it.