Vadodara to rise as state-of-the-art centre of bio-tech :Modi

Vadodara, Mar 31 (UNI) Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today announced his government's decision to develop the city as a state-of-the-art centre of bio-tech.

Addressing the centenary function of the pharma major Alembic Limited here, Mr Modi said it was a great challenge to the pharma industry and the country as a whole to develop low cost life saving drugs for the poor.

He appealed to the scientists and researchers to develop low cost health care products, which the poor could afford.

The chief minister, who released a book on Alembic's 100-year-journey, along with former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam at the function, said his government had allotted land for setting up of a NIPER bio-tech park near Gandhinagar.

Both Mr Modi and Dr Kalam paid tributes to Ramanbhai Amin, the founder of the Rs 1000 crore company, who transformed it to its present status with many path breaking achievements in pharma sector.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Kalam suggested that pharma community should identify all missions which would make India the leader in drug production. ''Indian pharma industry, having a turnover of USD 12.5 billion of generics for domestic and export markets, should set a target of producing 40 per cent of world generics production for realization of Indian Pharma Vision 2020,'' he added.

Dr Kalam felt that the Indian biomedical community should take the initiative to become a working partner in the proteomics project, which would enable genetic characterisation leading to forecasting and diagnosis of the disease for adopting suitable preventive and curative measures.

Observing that India had tremendous opportunities for herbal farming and research, the former president exhorted the scientists and technologists to increase database of traditional medicinal plants for specific bioactivity and lead for development of new drugs.

Alembic chairman Chirayu Amin said his company was all set to sign up a multi-crore rupees outsourcing contract with an internationally acclaimed multi-national company but did not divulge details of what he called one of the biggest manufacturing deals to be signed in the Indian pharma industry.

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