I am Takuko Sawada of Shionogi & Co. Ltd. and Chairperson of Biocommunity Kansai (BiocK).
BiocK aims to establish an ultimate ecosystem in the field of biotechnology based in the Kansai region to expand bio-first thinking to realize a sustainable society, and to form an international urban bio-community. The COVID-19 pandemic stimulated “disruptive” scientific and technological innovations, which have induced the ultimate ecosystem of industry-academia-government collaboration involving a large number of companies in Japan. Taking advantage of and advancing this trend, I would like to see this group in Kansai expand the ecosystem led by the private sector to promote solutions of social issues and questions. If/when we can bring growth of Japan through the growth of all those involved in the ecosystem, our Kansai bio-cluster will be able to contribute and compete successfully globally. Although there are still many issues to be addressed in making the ecosystem function more efficiently, we hope to bring many people together in Kansai to solve social issues and to communicate our activities to the world. We already have an industry-led issue-solving subcommittee, a start-up subcommittee, a digital subcommittee, and a forum for co-creation with many academic organizations and local governments participating. BiocK can also be utilized as a networking forum where the national government, local governments, academia, start-ups, SMEs, and large corporations can bring their respective strengths together to solve common issues and problems and create new business opportunities. If you are interested in solving social issues and expanding the ecosystem, please join us to work together to extendour horizon from Kansai to the world.

I am Morotomi of Hankyu Hanshin Properties Corp. , Vice Chair of Biocommunity Kansai (BiocK).
BiocK is established for creating an international urban bio-community. BiocK aims to realize the world’s most advanced society in bioeconomy until 2030, and will try to solve global-scale social issues in the fields of environment, energy, and healthcare. Specifically, we plan to form and operate a “subcommittee,” a free-participating open innovation consortium. We intend to create new technologies and rules, and to share the outcome of these activities with others by bringing together multiple value chains, mainly from industries. In other words, we hope to make the innovation ecosystem in the Kansai region stronger by forming value chains from R&D to commercialization in each field with the communities where these can function continuously. We have already started subcommittee activities with the leadership of several companies, and we will work on various activities under new themes in the future. We look forward to your all participation and supports.

I am Dr. Tsuneaki Sakata from Osaka University, and I am the Vice Chairperson and Executive Supervisor of Biocommunity Kansai (BiocK). In order to launch a global bio community in the Kansai region enacted in the Cabinet Office’s Bio Strategy 2019 and 2020, we have discussed with various stakeholders and got the cooperation of many people. We were able to establish and start Bio Community Kansai (abbreviated as BiocK). For more than 20 years, I have been involved in many bio-organizations and have been working to strengthen industry-government-academia collaboration. I strongly feel the need to promote network-type open innovation. We would like to further enhance the basis for innovation that has been cultivated in the history and achievements of biotechnology in Kansai, and promote efforts to make Kansai a biotechnology hub that is recognized around the world. In order to solve various social issues in the world, BiocK is mainly centered on industry and is supported by government and academia. As a center of commerce and industry, Osaka has a history of “Tanimachi culture (a culture to grow)” that has supported public projects with the power of the people. Kyoto is known as a city as traditional culture, and Kobe is known as an advanced and exotic port city. In addition to these three cities, there are many other attractive cities. With these cities and prefectures we will establish bio-community where innovation is constantly born. We would like to ask continued support. Many Thanks !