When Keio University professor Masaru Tomita accepted an offer in 2000 to head a new science lab in the city of Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, his fellow researchers — shocked at what they evidently considered his relegation to the countryside — warned him that his career was done for.
"They told me that no matter how hard I try, the lab will never succeed as long as it remains based in Yamagata," Tomita recalled.
Nearly 20 years into the endeavor, Tomita prides himself on having proven them wrong. Today, the lab and a sprawling community of spinoff biotech startups have evolved into a rare industrial cluster in Japan, something a local bank credits with slowing Tsuruoka's depopulation and reinvigorating its economy.