Japanese Will Tour 5 Local Biotech Firms

Ten Japanese companies that hope to develop or broaden biotechnology businesses will visit San Diego next week during a tour organized by the Japan External Trade Organization, a quasi-official government office based in Los Angeles.

The Japanese contingent will include representatives from a wide range of industries, including Fuji Chemicals Ltd., Hitachi Chemical Corp., Kansai Paint Co., Nippon Mining Co. and Nippon Steel Co. All have expressed interest in broadening or developing biotechnology businesses, according to Synbiotics Vice President Martin Nash, who helped organize the visit scheduled for Monday.

Before arriving in San Diego, the Japanese executives will have held similar meetings with executives from biotechnology firms in Houston and Hartford, Conn. They will travel to Los Angeles for another series of meetings next Tuesday.

The Japanese will visit five San Diego-based companies, according to JETRO spokeswoman Patty Hirahara: Synbiotics, Idec Pharmaceuticals, Quidel, Stratagene and Brunswick Biotechnetics.

Each of the companies will host a selected Japanese delegation at its plant or headquarters building, where executives will outline continuing research or discuss possible business relationships.

The sessions are geared toward U.S. companies that have “been interested in exploring a technical cooperative or investment arrangement with a leading Japanese biotechnology company and didn’t know where to start,� according to a brochure being circulated by JETRO.

Companies from Japan hope to meet “potential matching companies . . . to discuss mutually beneficial arrangements such as technology transfers, joint ventures, licensing, joint or contract research and development and (other) arrangements.�

JETRO is co-host of the tour, along with the Bioindustry Development Center, a Japanese trade organization. The California Department of Commerce, the California Industrial Biotechnology Assn. and the Washington-based Assn. of Biotechnology Companies are sponsoring the meetings in California.

The Japanese companies will conduct similar meetings in Los Angeles next Tuesday. There they will meet with representatives of 29 companies from California, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington and Arizona.