On February 8, the Economic Affairs Bureau of the City of Yokohama held the “Open Innovation Conference IV” as an initiative of LIP. Yokohama, the city’s innovation and collaboration platform for the life sciences. The cross-sector matching event took place at TKP Garden City PREMIUM Minato Mirai and was attended by 240 people.

The event kicked off with a keynote speech by an official from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW)’s Medical Innovation Support Office on the topic of promoting advanced life science and medical research, highlighting the unique role of the RIKEN Yokohama branch in the region. This was followed by presentations by leading companies from a wide range of industries with interests in pursuing life science-related open innovation projects. The 11 participating companies were: AGC Inc., Chiyoda Corporation, FUJITSU LIMITED, IHI Corporation, JVC KENWOOD Corporation, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., NIKON CORPORATION, Oji Holdings Corporation, Shiseido Company, Limited, Ube Industries, Ltd., and Yahoo Japan Corporation. Later, poster presentations were given by local bio ventures, SMEs and academic institutions showcasing their latest technology developments, which led into conversations surrounding new business collaborations among attendees. A total of 21 venture firms attended, including: BioMedCore, CellFree Sciences, CytoPathfinder, Gitoh Systems, JITSUBO, JMC, Liquid Design Systems, Nissin Kasei, Nihon Kolmar, Orange Science, REPROCELL, and Think-Lands.

LIP. Yokohama organizes various events like these to strengthen collaboration between various stakeholders in the life science sector including healthcare, IT and manufacturing industries, SMEs/startups, and the science & tech research community.

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