In the early 1980s, a research report in the United States said that Japan was the most formidable competitor of the U.S. in the field of biotechnology.
In contrast, this high evaluation of our country has plummeted in the 1990s, and Japan has come to be viewed as a nation that "poses no threat whatsoever in the realm of biosciences."
This indicates that biotechnology in the past referred to fermentation processes, an area where Japan could lead because of the centuries of knowledge it accumulated from making miso paste and soy sauce. In recent years, however, the focus of biotechnology has shifted to DNA research, an area where Japan lags.