In June, heads of 51 major Japanese companies launched the Japan Bioindustrialists' Association, an independent organization that will represent and support biotechnology-related industries in Japan. The move comes in response to growing concern that Japan lacks a strong biotechnology industry that can commercially exploit such efforts as the new national project to identify and map single nucleotide polymorphisms (see p. 744). The association, comprising presidents and chief executives of leading chemical, food, pharmaceutical, and apparatus firms, will call for the active involvement of companies in different sectors to promote commercialization of biotechnology-related research. In particular, the association will oversee effective implementation of a government program aimed at expanding Japan's biotechnology market 25-fold by 2010 (Nature Biotechnol. 17, 320). According to Katsuhiro Utada, chairman of the new association and director of the Japan Bioindustry Association (JBA; Tokyo), which represents the government, academia, and industry, the new association will lobby the government for help in building an encouraging infrastructure. This includes increased support for venture businesses, tax reforms, more funding for R&D, and relaxation of the civil service law, which prohibits university academics from taking part in profit-making activities.