The Hindu Business Line : 15 MoUs signed at BioAsia meet

BIOASIA-2005, the three-day bio-business summit, concluded here on Saturday with organisers claiming "a huge success based on the quality of speakers, delegates and exhibits, business discussions and initiators, quality representation from across the globe and sharing of knowledge that took place during the summit."

Addressing newspersons, the Andhra Pradesh Industries Secretary, Dr A. Ashok, said as a result of 70 one-to-one meetings for alliances, 15 memorandum of understanding were signed.

Owing to time constraint to visit facilities of prospective Indian partners and absence of authorised signatory, another 10 pre-MoUs were made by the participants waiting for the formal MoUs to follow, he said.

"The summit has lived up to its promise of being a platform for bridging the Asian and global biotech communities. We were successful in attracting over 300 delegates, 40 sponsors and exhibitors, 50 B2B delegates from 31 countries and over 300 biotech students, reflecting the mood of the biotech industry to collaborate across boundaries," Dr Ashok said.

According to the Andhra Pradesh Government Secretary, Mr B.P. Acharya, the summit provided a platform for global thought leaders, academia and experts of the Indian and international biotech industry to discuss challenges, experiences, investments, best practices and customer expectations in the biotechnology space. The summit underlined the opportunities that India offers to biotech companies seeking to expand operations, not just State-wide but to markets throughout the country and abroad.

The President of the All India Biotech Association, Southern Chapter, Dr B.S. Bajaj, said 40 delegates representing companies, individual entrepreneurs from Canada, Germany, Iran, Italy, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand and the US participated in this business forum.

Over thirty Indian companies, institutes took part in the interactive meet with foreign counterparts of their choice.

The Founder President of Federation of Asian Biotech Associations (FABA) and the Chairman of the National Commission on Biotechnology of Pakistan, Dr Anwar Nasim, said the areas of collaborations consisted of vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, diagnostic products, pharmaceutical chemistry and product development, agri-biotech, contract research, business development and outsourcing, IPR issues and venture financing.

Stating that 10 Asian countries have already joined the FABA, Mr Acharya said the organisers were hopeful of roping in more Asian countries, including major countries such as China and Japan, in the next 2-3 years.

So far, FABA has attracted Israel, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

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