Humiliated by its tardiness in plugging into the Internet boom, Japan is determined not to suffer the same indignity in bioscience. To boost its genomics program, the government is to open a new research institute in Osaka in 2004. Biotech-parks are sprouting up across the region. Set against the West's pioneers like Genentech, Asia's ventures are puny runts. Japan is only developing products based on U.S. technologies.
Scientific innovations are one thing.
Being able to translate those ideas into marketable material is another. Researchers are mostly new to business, notes Dr. Gurinder Shahi, who heads the Singapore life-sciences incubator, MJSS Enterprise Development. The venture produces drug molecules that are able to bind more tightly to targeted sites in the body. This means medicines can be administered at lower dosages and frequencies. And minimized side-effects.