Olympus Optical Co. will begin supplying genetic medical support systems and related services in April in the hope of generating 30 billion yen in sales in the new field in 2005, it announced Tuesday.

Olympus will initially focus on services and equipment for research into genetic drug discoveries and cancer treatments using genome-related technologies. Around 2003, it will enter the market for genetic clinical applications.

At the beginning of this month, Olympus established the Genome Medical Business Project, a new division that promotes genetic medical equipment and services provided by Olympus in fields ranging from basic research to clinical testing, diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

The company has set its sales goal for the new division at 100 billion yen by 2010, predicting the domestic genetic medicine market will reach between 10 trillion yen and 15 trillion yen and the domestic gene analysis service market will come to more than 600 billion yen.

To effectively promote the business, the company has formed a partnership with German venture Evotec BioSystems AG and plans to jointly develop equipment for next-generation single nucleotide polymorphism analysis early next year.

Olympus has also agreed to obtain a 10 percent stake, worth 200 million yen, in the Dutch venture PamGene and has made joint research agreements with Karolinska Institute and SMtec BioVision, both of which are based in Sweden.