India to be key player in biotech glogal mart

New Delhi, Mar 10 (UNI) The Biotech Industry is bullish of capturing a significant part of the nine billion dollar global market having positioned itself well to do so.

''By year 2010, the potential in India could be in the range of Rs 25,000 crores with its' Biotechnology graduates and numerous research and academic institutes, many of which have already started generating leading edge research outputs" said Rajresh Jain, Chairman of sub-committtee, CII, Northern Region addressing a two-day conference on the subject here.

Mr Jain, Joint Managing Director of Panacea Biotech, said Agriculture, Pharma Biotech and Industrial Applications as the key avenues with significant potential for India. Further talking about the micro areas in the domain of these key avenues, he mentioned about Food Security, Pest Resistant Crops, High Nutrition Transgenic Crops, Vaccines, Recombinant Therapeutics, Monoclonal Antibodies, and Biofertilisers, Enzymes, etc as having vast opportunities.

Deliberating on the subject further, Mr Jain said, ''We have all the requisite genes for success: people, opportunity and capability,'' he said adding, however, it is necessary to complement theoretical knowledge with sound practical learning. It is vital to create a conducive environment that enables backward integration with innovative work at the Industry level. We need to create the best regulatory framework to facilitate the fruits of industrial research reach into the market place''.

Biotechnology being a capital intensive and knowledge-based industry, Mr Jain stressed on the urgent need to have close association of government, academia and biotechnology industries.

Ms Sheetal Ranganathan, Group Manager - Business Research, Evalueserve, in her theme address, stressed on how biotechnology was closest to meeting the requirements of India in the 21st century, particularly in agriculture; where the need to introduce a new technology regime was critical, Nutritional Security: which was important from the Health perspective and health research and where India was already playing an important role in the global context.

''A revolution is taking place in the knowledge base of biotechnology, opening up enormous applications in the health care, agriculture, food production, and environmental protection. This is in addition to the basic scientific discoveries that are being made globally, and in India as well,'' she further stated.

Around 60 delegates are attending the two day conference from all over the country. The conference is providing a unique forum to bring together all the stakeholders involved in the development of biotechnology in the Northern States; government officials, decision makers from the biotechnology industry, entrepreneurs and scientists who have ventured into the cutting edge biotechnology knowledge base.

UNI ARB KD KN2005