King's College London attends BioJapan exhibition in Yokohama as part of a delegation led by MedCity, the life sciences cluster organisation for London.
Joining a group of leading UK scientists and research institutions representing MedCity, King's attended this year's BioJapan event last month. BioJapan, one of the largest BioTech exhibitions in Asia, brings together life science organisations from the UK and Japan with intentions to forge scientific research collaborations.
Founded by the Mayor of London in partnership with the city's Academic Health Science Centres, MedCity is the cluster organisation for the world-leading health and life sciences sector in London. Since MedCity was founded in 2014, the organisation has prioritised relationship building with Japan and East Asia for strategic collaborations with the UK's life science ecosystem.
This year's delegation's mission was to showcase the UK's life sciences offer to Japan, cement existing relationships, and forge future collaborations. Previous MedCity delegations resulted in global partnerships, such as the largest Korean biopharma mission to the UK and a partnership between MedCity and the Japanese Bioindustry Association to promote UK-Japan collaboration.
The exhibition was an opportunity to build partnerships and exchange knowledge with research organisations. The King's delegation shared information on King's current technologies with delegates and attended technology partnering meetings over the course of the exhibition. Dr Ian Durrant, IP & Licensing Manager at Innovation@King's, also had the opportunity to present on behalf of King's at the UK Life Science Symposium in Tokyo organised by MedCity and Link-J, the Life Science Innovation Network Japan, before the BioJapan event took place. The presentation was an introduction to King's and the wide range of biomedical research capabilities that are supported by collaborations and partnerships.
While organising the trip to Japan was an adventure in itself, it was both interesting and rewarding to attend an in-person technology partnering meeting after all the restrictions over the last couple of years. We were very much supported by the MedCity team and being part of a UK delegation, with a shared booth in the exhibition hall, provided a great foundation for the event. We met a number of key research based companies in Japan and were also able to present some of our current technologies, with a view to forming future collaborations.– Dr Ian Durrant, IP & Licensing Manager at Innovation@King's and Rachel Parker, Programme Manager, Industry Partnerships at Innovation@King's who both attended the exhibition
It is exciting that once again we can present our IP assets and research strengths to potential partners, investors and collaborators in Asia. We have many successful interactions with the Japanese life science sector - the acquisition this year of the spin out GammaDelta Therapeutics Ltd by Takeda is one such great example. King's is also pleased we can be part of the endeavour to reinforce the strength of the UK life science ecosystem to the global life science community.– Mike Shaw, Director of Innovation@King's
