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"With the right policy signals such as stem cell research and commercialisation of Bt cotton, global venture capitalists were now more inclined to investing in Indian biotech industry"

BANGALORE, June 27

THE Indian biotechnology sector is set to grow exponentially to $1.5 billion and see a flurry of activity from global and domestic companies in the next five years, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

For the domestic sector, there is a immense potential in global contract, clinical trial opportunities,contract manufacturing and bio-informatics markets.

This was the assessment of an 18-member CII biotech mission, which returned from a 10-day visit to Canada and the US.

"As Western drug companies look for low-cost options, the domestic biotech industry has growth opportunities worth hundreds of million dollars in these three areas," the CII national committee chairperson and CMD of Biocon India, Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who led the mission, said today.

Mr Vivek Kulkarni, Karnataka Secretary for IT & Biotechnology, who also was part of the mission, said there were potential investors in the US such as Affymax, Affymetrix, Sequenom, Incyte, Agilent, who already had a foothold directly or through tie-ups. Genencor is working with Biocon on biofuels and Affymax with Syngene.

MDS Sciex is exploring a base in Bangalore for its pre-clinical drug development plan. Others were seriously considering having manufacturing and research facilities in hubs such as Bangalore, he said.

Globally, there are over 300 bio-molecules in the pipeline, but the manufacturing capacity will be just 25 per cent of the demand. This is cue for Indian companies to set up low-cost GMP facilities and for regulators to be ready with compatible norms.

Majors such as Quintiles, Clintec, Ikon and Covance have also landed in the hope of having outsourcing research from Indian companies. However, regulatory aspects like Schedule Y would have to be amended, Ms Mazumdar-Shaw said.

She said a new CII study had forecast that the domestic biotech turnover would touch $1.5 billion by 2007.

This was double the figure for 2005 and a big jump from the present $150 million, of which exports are $90 million.

The study was based on inputs taken from 150 biotech companies over the last nine months. With the right policy signals such as stem cell research and commercialisation of Bt cotton, global venture capitalists were now more inclined to investing in Indian biotech industry, she said.

Though India has the English edge, China has been aggressively tapping millions of dollars of grants from agencies like the National Institute of Health.

The year 2003, she said, would be the year of bio-drugs like the human insulin, streptokinase, recombinant hep B, Interferon Alpha 2b, vaccines and diagnostics.

The CII mission coincided with the Toronto BIO 2002 meet, a bio-tech show. According to Ms Mazumdar-Shaw, it had generated a lot of interest in India's potential and improved the industry profile.

"We are following it up with a UK mission in July and an agri-biotech mission to the US and Canada in September,'' she said.

CII is also hosting Biotech India 2003 in Delhi next February.

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