Dr. Sachiko Kuno

Dr. Sachiko Kuno, co-founded S&R Foundation in Washington, D.C., in 2000 to support talented individuals with high aspirations and great potential in science, art and social entrepreneurship, especially those who are furthering international cultural collaboration. Sachiko is also a founder and managing member of S&R Technology Holdings, LLC, a Bethesda, MD based holding company.

Sachiko earned her PhD in biochemical engineering from Kyoto University, Japan and conducted post-doctoral research at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. In the mid-1980s, Sachiko joined Dr. Ryuji Ueno in establishing R-Tech Ueno Ltd., which led to more than 650 international patents and the successful launch of Rescula® eye drops, the first bioactive lipid ever used to treat glaucoma, in Japan. Leveraging R-Tech's success in Japan, the two established the Sucampo Group, an affiliation of companies in the Americas, Asia and Europe, in Bethesda, MD. Sachiko served as Sucampo Group’s founding CEO, Chair of the Board or advisor until 2012. Sucampo and R-Tech Ueno are listed and traded on NASDAQ and Tokyo Jasdaq respectively.

Sachiko currently serves as a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Keio University, Board member of the National Cherry Blossom Foundation, Board member of Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Advisory Board member of THIS for Diplomats at Meridian International Center. She has completed certificate coursework in international business management at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Sachiko’s awards and recognitions include the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Greater Washington Area in the Life Sciences Category (2007), one of the 25 “Women Who Mean Business” by The Washington Business Journal (2009) and she was named “Georgetowner of the Year” in the Georgetowner (2014). In 2015, she was awarded the Citizens Association of Georgetown’s William A. Cochran Award, and recognized in Forbes magazine in both the U.S. and Japan as one of “America’s Richest Self-Made Women.”