City & Venue Search

Medicine: Drug Discovery, Regenerative Medicine and Medical Equipment Manufacturing

Together with other cities in Kanagawa, Yokohama has been designated as a Life Innovation Special Zone. A number of research institutes and companies in the region focus on drug discovery, regenerative medicine and medical equipment manufacturing.
Several leading Japanese research institutes, including RIKEN, Yokohama City University and the Yokohama Biopharmaceutical R&D Center, have research facilities at Yokohama Science Frontier.
Cutting-edge research is being conducted in the regenerative medicine field. For example, in January 2014 a Yokohama City University research group announced to the world its discovery of a method for creating organs from iPS cells.
Many businesses and researchers belong to the Yokohama Kanagawa Bio-Business Network administered by the Kihara Memorial Yokohama Foundation, which acts as a platform for sharing information on the latest research results and business activities.

Smart Cities

Being selected as “FutureCity Eby the government, Yokohama City is committed to develop simultaneous solution of environment, economy and society.
In 2010, Yokohama City was nominated as one of the Next-generation Energy and Social Systems Demonstration Areas. Since then, the city has been promoting the Yokohama Smart City Project (YSCP) demonstration projects.
In cooperation with Japan’s 34 leading companies in the field of energy, electronics, and construction business, Yokohama City has introduced the system to optimize the energy supply-demand balance in the existing city areas with houses and commercial buildings.
From 2015, to utilize the technologies and know-how accumulated in the YSCP and to update the project from the demonstration stage to the implementation stage, Yokohama City set up a new public-private partnership organization, Yokohama Smart Business Association, aiming for the creation of an energy-recycling city with excellent disaster-resistance, environmental performance, and economic viability.
This project has been highly evaluated worldwide as it received the C40 Cities Award 2016 from C40 which is a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change.
To communicate such low-carbon-society initiatives to the world, Yokohama City advises overseas cities on urban development and proactively shares its knowledge by hosting forums such as the Asia Smart City Conference.

Photo : Biomass power generation (sewerage treatment) (AP/C40)