Joint venture for microbial genome information analyses

Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., Ltd. (President: Tadashi HIRATA, Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) and Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd. (President: Susumu MIYAMOTO, Head office: Nakano-ku, Tokyo) proudly announce that the two companies have reached an agreement to set up a research & development (R&D) -oriented joint venture utilizing genome information, particularly in the microbiological field (to be known as Xanagen Inc.), and are presently making preparations to found it early in October 2000. It will be 50%-owned by each of the two companies.

The advances in scientific technologies have made people's lives more comfortable, but have also exerted various adverse influences such as exhaustion of natural resources, environmental destruction and pollution, accumulation of wastes, and food shortages. Human beings must solve these serious problems as soon as possible, and the development of new biotechnologies, particularly those using microbial genome information, is expected to play a key role in making such efforts.

The joint venture aims at accelerating R&D activities based on "microbial genome information," making the most of the genome technologies and information sciences that Kyowa Hakko and Mitsui Knowledge Industry have long accumulated. It will make vigorous research efforts in order to contribute to solving various problems that the present-day society is confronted with.