Mitsui Chemicals and the Innovation Center of NanoMedicine Establish the MCI-iCONM Co-Creation Laboratory
Embarking on joint research into nanomedicine-based healthcare modalities
2025.02.25
Innovation Center of NanoMedicine
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. (Tokyo: 4183; President & CEO: HASHIMOTO Osamu) and the Kawasaki Institute of Industrial Promotion (Kawasaki, Kanagawa; Chairperson: SUZUKI Takeshi) today announced that they signed an agreement in January 2025 to establish the MCI-iCONM Co-Creation Laboratory. The laboratory’s purpose is to undertake collaborative research based on interorganizational co-creation, with the aim of achieving a resiliently healthy society where people across the globe will be able to gain better health in a self-designed manner. Based on this agreement, Mitsui Chemicals and the Kawasaki Institute of Industrial Promotion’s Innovation Center of NanoMedicine (Kawasaki, Kanagawa; Director General: KATAOKA Kazunori; “iCONM”) have begun jointly operating the co-creation laboratory.
Mitsui Chemicals has positioned accelerated management and business transformation as one of the basic strategies in its VISION 2030 Long-Term Business Plan. Through this strategy, the company aims to acquire new technologies not found in any existing technology platforms, and thereby create new value beyond 2030 that will pave the way for new business domains. iCONM’s activities as a healthcare-focused innovation hub are aimed at creating “in-body hospitals” that hold the key to a Smart Life Care Society.
Both partners are working toward the achievement of a resiliently healthy society where people across the globe will be able to gain better health in a self-designed manner. Within this context, Mitsui Chemicals and iCONM decided to establish the new co-creation laboratory in order to not only develop the component technologies required, but also build a new nanomedical technology platform integrating the know-how, intellectual property and personnel involved in technology development.
The objective of the MCI-iCONM Co-Creation Laboratory is to encourage the development of technology that will give people ways of determining their physical condition at a very early stage, and to help provide those people with appropriate options for their own well-being. With this in mind, the co-creation laboratory will undertake joint research into nanomedicine-based healthcare modalities* and create business schemes for their social implementation. By leveraging the synergies from combining both organizations’ technical, human and physical resources, the laboratory will pursue initiatives aimed at achieving a resiliently healthy society.
Overview of the Co-Creation Laboratory
Name | MCI-iCONM Co-Creation Laboratory |
|---|---|
Focus of collaboration | Establishing and jointly operating the MCI-iCONM Co-Creation Laboratory |
Objective | Encouraging the development of technology that will both give people ways of determining their physical condition at a very early stage and help provide appropriate options for self-designed well-being |
Establishment period | January 1, 2025 – March 31, 2030 |
Location | Innovation Center of NanoMedicine, Kawasaki, Kanagawa |
Laboratory managers | Co-Creation Research Leader ICHIKI Takanori (Research Director and Principal Research Scientist, iCONM) Co-Creation Project Leader WATANABE Eiji(Manager, Frontier Technology Center, Mitsui Chemicals Inc.) |
The MCI-iCONM Co-Creation Laboratory management team made a courtesy visit to Kawasaki City mayor FUKUDA Norihiko (photograph dated February 7, 2025)
From left: UEHARA Yoshikazu, Senior Director, Frontier Technology Center, Mitsui Chemicals Inc.; SHIBATA Shingo, Managing Executive Officer, Center executive of R&D Center of Mitsui Chemicals Inc.; FUKUDA Norihiko, Mayor of Kawasaki City; SUZUKI Takeshi, Chairperson, Kawasaki Institute of Industrial Promotion; KATAOKA Kazunori, Center Director, iCONM
■ About Mitsui Chemicals
Under the VISION 2030 Long-Term Business Plan formulated in 2021, Mitsui Chemicals is pursuing portfolio transformation toward its goal of becoming a high-growth, high-earning global specialty chemical company. One of the company’s R&D strategies involves a long-term R&D approach, through which it envisions the future that it wants to create based on many possibilities in anticipation of the difficult-to-predict world of 2030 and thereafter, then identifies challenges by backcasting from the envisioned future.
■ About the Kawasaki Institute of Industrial Promotion
This institute was established in 1988 with funding provided entirely by the government of Kawasaki. Its objectives include contributing to the industrial and economic development of the city and its surrounding region, as well as enhancing medical care and welfare through the pursuit of R&D in cutting-edge medical and pharmaceutical fields. Working in partnership with government bodies, relevant organizations and assorted other bodies, the institute has positioned Kawasaki City Industrial Promotion Hall as a center for supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startup companies in the city. The institute’s projects relating to industrial promotion include efforts to enhance support for business management, along with assistance in the creation of new industries and technologies. The institute also devotes its energies to providing comprehensive support services aimed at helping to solve the various challenges faced by SMEs and startups.
https://www.kawasaki-net.ne.jp/ (Japanese version only)
■ About the Innovation Center of NanoMedicine
Located in the international strategic zone KING SKYFRONT, in the Tonomachi area of Kawasaki, iCONM is a core center in the life sciences field. This pioneering public research facility began operating in April 2015, having been developed by Kawasaki City government and the Kawasaki Institute of Industrial Promotion, with funding from the Core Hub of International Science Innovation Through Industry–Academia Collaboration Utilizing Regional Resources program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. iCONM will celebrate the 10th anniversary of its founding this April. With foreign nationals making up around 40 percent of its research staff, the center has a highly diverse, international nature. Tapping into this strength, iCONM undertakes research on innovative topics and seeks to commercialize the fruits of that work, based on an interdisciplinary structure that brings the worlds of industry, academia and government together under one roof.
https://iconm.kawasaki-net.ne.jp/en/index.html
*Modalities: Modes of treatment including low molecular weight drugs, antibody drugs, nucleic acid medicine, cell therapy, gene and cell therapy, and gene therapy
