The R&D division of Novozymes Japan (NZJP) was established by Steen Riisgaard, now President & CEO of Novozymes A/S, who was expatriated to Japan in 1982 for a three-year period.
The Business Operations (BO) division of NZJP began selling directly to major customers in May 2001, when business was transferred from Mitsui & Co., Ltd, which was by then the exclusive distributor.
Our vision is to "ensure a healthy growth of Novozymes A/S through fast identification and development of customers' real needs". R&D and BO are actively communicating with customers in Japan in order to identify their real needs, generating various "Japan-originated" products for the global market and applications specifically for the Japanese market.
R&D is active in collaborating with Japanese academia in technology development and new leads initiation. These activities are boosted by our "Enzyme Research Fund", which was set up in 1992 and provides grants for young, excellent Japanese researchers every year.
The core technologies of R&D are:
The activities of Business Operations cover all sales and business transactions, logistics, promotion of products and technical service to facilitate the use of enzymes by customers. In Japan, technical serv
ice is provided by Research & Development. Novozymes Japan supplies products to all major industries in Japan, with a variety of products manufactured in Denmark, China, the USA and Switzerland