Fukushima co-operation: IVAM CEO Dr. Thomas Dietrich to manage future activities in medical technology

North Rhine-Westphalian foreign trade promotion agency NRW.International has appointed the IVAM Microtechnology Network to drive forward the co-operation between North Rhine-Westphalia and Japan in general and Fukushima Prefecture in particular.
 
Dr. Thomas Dietrich, CEO of IVAM, is set to supervise co-operations of North Rhine-Westphalian and Japanese SMEs in medical technology and will be acting as a coordinator of all planned activities. These include business meetings and business presentations at medical technology trade shows and conferences as well as participation in the Japanese trade show “Medical Creation Fukushima” in November 2015. Future activities include a German-Japanese business meeting on “Nanotechnology in Medicine” in September in Olpe, Germany. The leading trade fair MEDICA as well as the co-opted parallel COMPAMED will be used for B2B talks.
 
In September 2014, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Secretary of Commerce Garrelt Duin and Fukushima Prefecture’s Governor Yuhei Sato, in a memorandum of understanding agreed on a close co-operation in the field of medical technology. In the face of both Japanese and German societies’ demographic change, these fields are of great importance.
 
Since then, NRW.International and IHK Düsseldorf have conducted various activities to further cooperation between North Rhine-Westphalian and Japanese businesses.
 
Micro- and Nanotechnology promise to be key technologies in reducing cost pressure on the countries’ health systems and pushing medical innovations to the markets faster and more efficiently.
 
Shortly after the 2011 earthquake, Fukushima Prefecture initiated several programs, one of which being close co-operation with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with the intention of becoming internationally competitive in medical technology and clean energy and to strengthen the Fukushima region’s economy in a sustainable fashion.