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business were single-molecule fluorescence detection systems and
D DNA microarray systems. The next step is equipment that
supports research and development in genome-based drug dis-
covery as well as the provision of necessary software, services and
reagents. The final step is the application in clinical testing equip-
ment. This final stage is where we believe Olympus will really be
able to leverage its strengths.
Q4: How do you view the future potential of the genome market?
While the th century is called the era of electronics, the st
century is shaping up to be the era of life sciences, or an era of
human rehabilitation. The scope of life sciences-related indus-
tries in  was ¥.trillion in Japan alone. These markets for
biomedicine, healthcare and foods are expected to grow sharply
to about ¥ trillion by . As the global scale of this market is
estimated to be ¥ trillion, Japan will account for % of the
world market.
Genome medicine is thought to represent between -% of
this market, or approximately ¥- trillion. A major portion of
this comes from pharmaceuticals, so the market for analyzers and
reagents alone is even more limited. H owever, we have no doubt
that life sciences-related industries will enjoy significant growth
over the next  years or so. We believe there is enormous poten-
tial for growth in our business domain.
NC E
Q5: In what direction do you plan to lead the Life Science Group?
We believe that it is important to conduct business with interac-
tive communications with customers and to make ourselves indis-
pensable to our customers. This is the main reason why O lympus
absorbed the sales subsidiary O lympus ProMarketing, Inc. We
have already accumulated expertise in up-and-running business-
es, enabling us to stay a step ahead of our customers. In a field
like genome medicine where society has yet to benefit from the
unknown, we must do our best to pioneer the field and create the
business from the ground up. For this reason, interactive com-
munication with our customers is absolutely essential to promote
our mutual progress.
With this in mind, we aim to evolve existing operations
further.
July 
Isao Takahashi
President of the Life Science Group
M A R K E T S C A L E O F
G E N O M E M E D I C I N E
Genome medicine
represents -%, or
approximately ¥-
trillion, of the med-
ical market.
OLYMPUS 2003
¥1 0 t rillion
olympus ar03 for PDF 03.8.1 10:25 AM ページ 9