Why did the Japanese Minister of Science visit the IZB with his delegation?
Biotechnology is one of the strategic R&D fields in Japan, along with other fields such as quantum physics, artificial intelligence, materials, and so on. The Japanese government also promotes startups and regional clusters to build an innovation ecosystem between the private sector, academia and public institutions. Munich is a hotspot for cutting-edge innovation. We see the location as a great model for such an ecosystem, as a number of players in this field are involved. “We want to get to know IZB as an important hub for regional collaboration and support for startups,” Ide said.  In Munich, the plan was also to visit universities and institutions in other research areas.

How was the minister able to get a picture of the site?
During the visit, Dr. Peter Hanns Zobel, Managing Director of the IZB, presented the site to Minister Ide and his delegation. In the Faculty Club G2B (Gateway to Biotech), Zobel explained in detail the development of the start-up center with the two sites in Martinsried and Weihenstephan. In doing so, he showed how closely the Martinsried Campus and the Weihenstephan Campus are linked to the IZB. The start-up center in Martinsried is surrounded by the two Max Planck Institutes for Biochemistry and Biological Intelligence, the institutes of Ludwig Maximilian University and the Munich Hospital in Großhadern. In Weihenstephan, there is very close cooperation with the Technical University of Munich (TUM). “The entrepreneurs who move into the IZB with their start-ups are born out of the circle of this top-level research,” said Zobel, explaining the close links between the entrepreneurs and the research institutes. In an overview, he showed the business areas of the start-ups and went into detail about the company sales that take place at the IZB almost every two years. “In the period from 2015 to today, deals worth 5.6 billion have been concluded,” Zobel explained the successes of the startups at the site.

Who accompanied Minister Ide in this delegation?
Nobutaka Maekawa, Consul General of Japan in Munich; Hiroaki Ubukata, Secretary to the Vice Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan; Satoshi Odoi, Director of the Department of International Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan; Satoshi Suzuki, First Secretary, Embassy of Japan in Berlin, Germany; and Tomoyuki Kishi, Consul General of Japan in Munich visited the site with Minister Ide.

Who else was Minister Ide able to meet during the visit?
As the delegation visited the site exactly before the networking event IZBrunch due to scheduling reasons, they also had the opportunity to meet the two speakers of the event. Prof. Dr. Karl Duderstadt, head of the research group “Structure and Dynamics of Molecular Machines” at the MPI of Biochemistry, who spoke on the topic “Imaging the Machines that Remodel and Reassemble Chromosomes”, was pleased to meet Minister Ide in person. Jens Klein, Founder & CEO Insempra GmbH, also welcomed the Minister and explained how Insempra combines life science and technology to produce matter for new, better and more sustainable products on an industrial scale.

Who should you contact if you want to establish business relations with Japan as a start-up?
The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), Munich office, is a good contact for this. The head of the Munich JETRO office is responsible for start-up relevant business relations and investments in Munich. Contact person can be found here: https://www.jetro.go.jp/germany/