Our 3rd iMAC (International Medical Agent Conference) was held June 6 through 9, 2004. It was a whole 3 years since we had held the 2nd iMAC in 2001 at A&D R&D center. This time, A&D held the conference at Laforet Nasu Hotel, Tochigi Prefecture, that is located about 150 km northeast of Tokyo. Taking a bus from Tokyo Dome Hotel on the morning of July 6, we transferred to the hotel with 25 attendees from 15 countries, and arrived there around noon. By the early evening staff from our R&D team also joined the session, and about 50 people gathered in the conference room in total.

The theme of iMAC 2004 was "New Challenge" After lunch, the session began with a presentation "A Thought of New Challenge" by our director, Masatake Eto. The presentation reviewed our current sales activities and, topics and showed the direction of our future business. At iMAC 2004 we experienced many great and fruitful presentations from participants. Including those by A&D subsidiaries, the guests made 12 presentations. It was a great opportunity to listen to and exchange information with each other. In the evening after taking a spa, the attendees enjoyed a Japanese meal for dinner and received certificates with special gifts from our president, Hikaru Furukawa.

On the 2nd day, after the presentations by A&D Instruments, Ltd. and A&D Mercury Pty. Ltd., A&D launched 2 new products and introduced 4 products still in development. These brand-new and unique products attracted a huge amount of interest and many questions and opinions were addressed to the presenter and R&D staff. Questions and opinions from attendees sometimes developed into discussions of each specification. In the afternoon, we set up 5 tables for our agents to discuss in groups the disclosed new products and to know what items were the most anticipated in their market places. We could obtain many constructive and forward-looking opinions through these discussions, and it was a big help to our R&D unit. The dinner party this night was buffet style. The guests and A&D staff enjoyed many western foods. The party switched to karaoke about 2 hours later, making the guests crazy. The guests and A&D chorused many songs and the party continued until late into the night.

On the 3rd day, we got up early in the morning and left the hotel by 8:30 to enjoy a boat-ride down River Kinu. The 45-minute boat-ride commanded wonderful views of beautiful glen scenery and passed uniquely shaped big rocks that supplied a lot of satisfaction to our guests. After we savored grilled rainbow trout for lunch at the Nikko Kanaya Hotel, we moved to the Rinnouji temples, which are some of the most famous historical temples in Japan. The main temple was huge and the English guided-tour took 2 hours. At around 6:00 PM our bus returned to the Tokyo Dome Hotel where our trip had started from two days before, and iMAC 2004 ended with this arrival.

Owing to great cooperation by all attendees, we could finish this agent meeting with great success. We really appreciate your help with many thanks. We are looking forward to seeing you again at the next iMAC.