Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Apr 15, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Apr 15, 2003 |
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Industry & Economy
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Bio-tech & Genetics Destination Bangalore Our Bureau
FORGET the gory Gulf War-2 or the SARS scare for a while. If it's April, it must be time for another biotech do in Bangalore. The third issue of Bangalore Bio, on from April 15 to 17, could turn out to have the maximum international participation in an Indian biotech event so far. There is also the promised participation of a big US delegation. The Karnataka Vision Group on Biotechnology has been organising the meet to make Bangalore the destination for investors in the field and expects it to become Asia's premier biotech event. Base of activities in agriculture, healthcare, genomics and bio-informatics, Bangalore is also home to over 70 biotech companies and a resource pool of 7,500 professionals. It claims to add one biotech company each month and to bag more venture capital funding than any other centre in the country. The city also houses the nearly 100-year-old Indian Institute of Science, the National Centre for Biological Sciences, the two-year-old Institute of Bio-informatics and Applied Biotechnology, besides premier biotech companies such as Biocon, Sartorius, AstraZeneca Research and Strand Genomics. Falling a half-century after the discovery of the Watson-and-Crick DNA double helix, the event, themed on `Gene for growth' this year, has doubled in size since it was launched in 2001. According to organisers, a hundred participants from 22 countries and six Indian States and 10 premier research labs will be participating. Mr Alan Colman, the creator of the late cloned sheep Dolly, is also expected. The 2003 conference will discuss institutional R&D, phytopharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, patent issues, informatics, environment protection and policies in relation to biotech. Some of the big names in the field — AstraZeneca, Sartorius, Novozymes, Biocon India, ABB, Eppendorf, Avesthagen, Nasdaq, Lotus Labs, Strand Genomics, SaintLife and UBI France — who have sizable biotech investments, are enthusiastic about the prospects in India. The official US certification of the event, they say, is a spur for global majors in the US to take part in big numbers. Even if 10 per cent of the speakers at the conference may have opted out, they are said to be from Asia. Among the countries participating are France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Singapore and Malaysia, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Australia, Finland, Ireland, China and South Korea. It will be a common platform for companies involved in biotechnology, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, instrumentation and infrastructure and investments. The States of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa and Chandigarh, which are also nursing biotech ambitions, will be represented. The highlights are a B2B Forum, Knowledge Pavilion and a CEO conclave, along with a special round table on `Formulating models for industry-institute-VC partnership'. The organisers expect to have 25,000 business and 30,000 public visitors during the expo being held at the sprawling Palace Grounds.
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