Blog Post

Accelerating Sustainable Manufacturing in Japan with Sojitz

Sojitz Corporation intends to use its extensive network to help Ginkgo foster business connections within the Japanese bioeconomy

Today we’ve entered into a binding definitive agreement with Sojitz to bring more synthetic biology R&D services to Japan!


Together, Sojitz and Ginkgo aim to build connections with key Japanese businesses and encourage the use of synthetic biology to develop sustainable production processes.

Sojitz believes Ginkgo’s unique synthetic biology research and development services will appeal to customers within the Japanese bioeconomy that are looking to replace petroleum and chemical-based manufacturing processes with bio-based ones.

The Japanese government has formulated a Bioeconomy Strategy that envisions a $837 billion (USD) bioeconomy, and is looking to develop biotechnology applications across industries as it pursues its climate commitments to reach net zero by 2050. We hope to apply our platform in support of the Japanese biotech ecosystem to accelerate progress to achieving this vision.

“We are pleased to introduce Ginkgo’s technology to Japanese companies that have a desire to reduce their carbon footprint and develop sustainable fermentation processes. We are confident that Ginkgo’s expertise in synthetic biology and the breadth of its technology platform can be used to transform processes across various Japanese industries, including industrial biotechnology.” - Koji Izutani, Managing Executive Officer, Sojitz

We’re thrilled to join efforts with Sojitz and collaborate on bolstering the Japanese bioeconomy.

Sojitz is a well respected trading company that has extensive relationships with many of the major industrial and chemical companies in Japan. We look forward to working with Japanese companies to leverage our synthetic biology platform to accelerate the development and launch of bio-based and sustainable products in Japan.

Ginkgo’s co-founder, Tom Knight, will present at the SusHi Tech Tokyo 2024 conference on May 15th at 12pm Japan Standard Time, where he will further discuss the collaboration with Sojitz.

Posted by Ena Cratsenburg