Partnership as the Key to Success
EBARA and Capsulution at the German-Japanese Economic Forum in Hanover
- Dr. Jörg Mayer (Capsulution Nanoscience AG), Kiyoshi Wada (Koito Europe), Kazuhiko Miyaji (Toyota Motor Europe), Bernd Ziesemer (Chefredakteur Handelsblatt), Shuichi Kosuge (ADIT Corp.), Dr. Andreas Hoelscher (ADIT Corp.)
Capsulution Nanoscience AG was presented at the German Japanese Economic Forum under the slogan “German and Japan as Innovation Partners”.
Amidst representatives from the companies DENSO/Bosch-Blaupunkt and Porsche/Koito, Jörg Mayer of Capsulution was able to present the strategic cooperation with the EBARA Corp..
The presentation met with an interested audience of more than a hundred participants, filling the auditorium of the Convention Centre entirely. High-ranking representatives from the political and industrial arena were present, discussing afterwards the success factors and the innovative force of German-Japanese cooperation.
“In the year 2004, the Japanese plant builder EBARA came to our attention here at the Hanover Trade Fair and in March 2005, we signed a licence agreement”, said Mayer, Business Development Manager at Capsulution in explaining the success story. After that, EBARA received the licence for the development and marketing of the production plant facilitated by Capsulation’s LBL-Technology® for application within the pharmaceutical field as well as the cosmetics and food industry. A productive cooperation between EBARA and Capsulution began: While EBARA was developing the so-called LBL-Unit, Capsulution took over the new development of substances using the LBL-Technology®, the aim being the development of improved pharmaceutical products.
“Together with EBARA, we can offer patent-protected substances. If a customer’s product enters the market, licence fees ensue. The profit is then divided between EBARA and Capsulution”, continues Mayer. “Contacts are acquired together, for instance at the trade fair ‘Interphex’ in Japan. We have an intensely cooperative, transparent and trusting partnership here”, ensures Mayer. For the expertise transfer and also to strengthen the partnership, members of Capsulution’s development team work for periods of time in EBARA’s laboratories – one member has even been there permanently since last year.
“Supported by Capsulution, EBARA wanted to extend its Life Science Unit from being a purely engineering department to being a contract developer and manufacturer for the pharmaceutical industry”, states Mayer. “Thanks to the latest nano-technological drug-delivery systems, the Japanese company can grow into a high-tech service company”.
The original relationship, primarily geared to the development of hardware has changed into a permanent development and marketing partnership, surmised Mayer, able at the end of the presentation to deliver to-the-point the key factor for the successful cooperation: “The building up of a truly successful partnership which ranges far further than the usual customer-supplier relationship”. The German-Japanese picturebook cooperation received appreciative applause.
In the summing-up of the meeting, the demand was clear, as stated by Jürgen Thumann, President of the Federal Association of German Industry (Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie (BDI)) and Fumiaki Oya, Director of Toyota Motor Europe: “Germany and Japan need to cooperate more intensely on the fields of research and development if they wish to survive future challenges.
