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Kobe, a cluster at the forefront of Japanese medical R & D
Presented by all the players of Japanese innovation as their major cluster in life sciences, the biomedical cluster of Kobe was developed in the ruins of an earthquake. Today, it is pursuing a coherent vision, unchanged for 30 years and which has proved successful. Initially, a revitalization project Kobe is historically a zone of heavy industry: shipbuilding, automobile construction … Following the great earthquake of 1995, the city had to face nearly ¥7 trillion of economic losses, the equivalent of one year of its GDP. To rebuild the economy, reconstruction would not have been enough. A new economic pillar was needed. It had to be the medical industry, because forecasts announced it would become a major market, especially because of the ageing population. Since the local government had no competence in this field, in 1998 it called on Dr. Hiroo Imura, President of Kyoto University, to lay the foundations for the development of a biomedical cluster on the artificial island of the port. He surrounded himself with colleagues from Kansai (Osaka and Kobe Universities, Osaka National Cardiovascular Research Center, etc.) […]
