Greeting | HOKKAIDO BIO TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER FORUM

What is the Hokkaido Biotechnology Industrial Cluster Forum?

The Hokkaido Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry launched the “Hokkaido Super Cluster Promotion Project” in April 2001, aimed at promoting the formation of an information industry cluster and bio-industry cluster in Hokkaido, and has been making active efforts for realization. In response to these efforts, the Hokkaido Biotechnology Industrial Cluster Forum was established in July 2002, and full-scale activities for formation and development of clusters started.
In 2007, the bureau has initiated “Hokkaido Bio-industry Development Strategy”, an effective cycling of products, aimed at facilitating exchanges between bio-industry and unique regional industries, such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and food industries.
To foster and develop bio-industry in Hokkaido, the forum promotes the formation of a bio-company network in Hokkaido and cooperates with a group of businesses outside the prefecture that are potential business partners for local bio-businesses. The group is called the “partners outside Hokkaido” and includes trading firms, venture companies, financial institutions, and manufacturers. The forum is striving to expand the market for bio-products of Hokkaido by actively promoting national bio-business interchanges (business matching).
In addition, the forum aims to seek further results by linking with multilayered networks, including networks of universities and research institutes, independent activities by businesses etc., and regional/sectoral organizations.
These activities have already produced some results, such as advanced accumulation of businesses and improved name recognition in Hokkaido,s bio-industry, which shows sustainable growth by increasing sales and number of employees.

Japan,s bio-industry cluster promoting areas and the number of bio-venture businesses

Characteristics of Hokkaido Bio-industrial Cluster

Current State and Issues

Looking at sectoral share of companies participating in the Hokkaido Bio-industrial Cluster that is growing year by year, functional food and cosmetics have the largest percentage (46%), followed by medical care and pharmaceutical industry (14%), research support (15%), agricultural biotechnology industry (8%).
Also, total prospective sales and the number of employees in 2008 are approximately 46.1 billion yen (5.8% yearly increase) and 1,392 people (0.2% yearly increase), respectively and both have been strongly growing.
The increase is attributed to some factors including expanding new participating companies, drastic sales growth of biotechnology companies in the medical care and pharmaceutical sector and steady sales growth of biotechnology companies in the functional food and cosmetics sector.

Percentage distribution by sector
(Hokkaido Bio Report 2010)

	Functional food/ Cosmetics	Development of functional foods, cosmetics and raw materials, etc. utilizing agricultural and fishery resources and microorganism, etc.
	Medical care/ Medical drug	Development of biomedicine, pharmaceutical or medical material and research development of medical diagnosis technology, etc
	Research Support	Development of reagents and experimental animals for research, contract test for safety and pharmacological effect, research development and analysis service etc. of gene and protein, etc.
	Agricultural biotechnology	Development of seed and seedling, plant growth and activation agent, development of agriculture, livestock husbandry and green material utilizing microorganisms, etc.
	Others	Development of environmental purification and biomass equipment utilizing microorganisms, development of bio-related research devices and or equipment, Bioinformatics, etc.