Italian Scientists and Scholars of North America Foundation
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ITALIAN BIOTECH EXPLORES JAPAN
The Italian biotechnology industry is ready to enter the Japanese market, which is worth 1,139.3 billion yen alone, and is one of the most flourishing and advanced in all of Asia. Thanks to the institutional participation organised by ICE (the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade), Italian biotechnology companies will form a strong presence at the Bio Japan 2009 Forum, which will be held in the “Pacifico” Exhibition Centre in Yokohama from 7 to 9 October 2009. The Bio Japan Forum, organised by Nikkei Business Publications, is the sector’s largest Asian convention, centred on partnering and business meetings, and each year it brings together decision-makers from the biotechnology sector and representatives from the world of international finance. In 2008, there were 23,681 visitors to the show, 4,000 of whom were foreigners, with 163 exhibitors, of whom 33 came from abroad. In 2008, the Italian presence, represented by ICE (the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade), was limited to one institutional stand, which served as a business centre for around 22 Italian companies. They were able to organise business meetings and present their own products and research to a highly specialised audience of field experts. This year, however, the companies are able to participate as co-exhibitors in the 72m² Italian collective area, arranged at the centre of the show and organised by ICE’s Rome office, in collaboration with the Tokyo office. Seeing the interest created by its participation in the previous edition, there was a desire to increase the visibility of Italian industry in this sector of such a highly innovative and competitive market as that of Japan. In the land of the rising Sun, the level of research connected with biotechnologies is, indeed, very advanced, and its applications are already part of the daily life of many Japanese. The highest figures (almost 630 billion yen) were recorded for applications in the food division, followed by pharmaceuticals, with 459.4 billion. In the medical field, which focuses on regenerative medicine, some products (skin cultivated for autologous transplantation) were approved for the first time in 2007, even if it appears that it will still take some time for a true market to develop. From 2003 to 2005, the Japanese market recorded an overall average annual growth of 7%. The environmental sector showed the most rapid growth (49.1%), doubling in two years. Pharmaceuticals were next, with 10%, which is a remarkable result considering that in the same period, the overall market for prescription drugs recorded a growth of 2%. The food division reported a growth of 5.4%, whereas the industrial division (equipment for biotechnological research) remained stationary. The Japanese market for prescription drugs, estimated at an overall value of 6,800 billion yen (2005), is the second largest in the world, after that of the United States, and in this region the biotech drugs sector has continued to grow at an annual rate of around 10% in recent years, occupying 6.8% of the prescription drugs market. But the Bio Forum, above all, provides a place for meetings between participating companies from all over the world, ensuring contact with a large number of executive directors of biotech and pharmaceutical companies. There is also a Business Partnering Matching System, available for participating companies, through which those who have registered can search the details of the other included companies and contact other exhibitors and sector operators in advance.
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