【Executive Vice President Professor Tsuyoshi Setoguchi(Left), Professor Hirofumi Sawa, Director of IVReD, Professor Keiichi Yamamoto, Project Manager of IVReD】

We exhibited at BioJapan 2024, which was held at Pacifico Yokohama from October 9th (Wednesday) to 11th (Friday) for the first time.

This event is one of the largest partnering events in Asia, with BioJapan, which this IVReD exhibited at, and the concurrent holding of the three exhibitions Regenerative Medicine JAPAN and health TECH JAPAN. Many companies, startups, academia, and research institutions from Japan and overseas participated, and the total number of visitors over the event’s three days was approximately 14,000.

As part of the research and development activities and public relations activities of the  “Strategy for Strengthening Vaccine Development and Production Systems” by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) / Strategic Center of Biomedical Advanced Vaccine Research and Development for Preparedness and Response (SCARDA), the five participating base institutions (Hokkaido University, University of Tokyo, Chiba University, Osaka University, Nagasaki University) jointly exhibited to strengthen collaboration with companies, obtain opportunities for licensing out vaccine seeds, and new collaborative research and development.

We introduced the activities of IVReD by displaying posters on the results of our research to date and our latest initiatives, and also distributed various materials, and held meetings with companies to explore the possibility of new collaborative research. In particular, the results of the isolation of a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus strain from a red fox and its certification by the government as a pre-pandemic vaccine strain, as well as our research and development of new diagnostic methods, attracted a lot of attention. On the first day of the event, Executive Vice President Professor Tsuyoshi Setoguchi visited the booth and confirmed the results of IVReD.

In addition to the panel display, there were presentations by Professor Keiichi Yamamoto who is the project manager of IVReD, Professor Junya Yamagishi (International Institute
for Zoonosis Control, Hokkaido University), introducing the research and development content of IVReD, and there were many participants every day.
During the event, there were many visitors to the booth, and we were able to take the opportunity to build new relationships with many companies and research institutions, making it a very meaningful place for disseminating and gathering information.

This was our first time exhibiting at BioJapan, so there were many things we had to figure out as we went along, but we are planning to exhibit at BioJapan again next year, and we are also planning to promote the out-licensing of vaccine seeds and joint research and development.

【Professor Yamagishi giving the presentation】