India targets $10 bln in biotech

BANGALORE: India's fledgling biotechnology sector, seeking to emulate the nation's software companies, hopes to generate one million jobs and investments of $10 billion by 2010, industry officials said on Sunday.

Executives are betting on low-cost, highly-skilled knowledge workers to tap new opportunities emerging in drug discovery, contract research, clinical trials and bio-informatics, which involves the use of software to analyze genetic codes.

"Our goal is to create a million jobs by 2010 in this sector for the nation as a whole," said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, head of a group set up by the southern state of Karnataka to steer the industry, in an address at the annual Bangalorebio.com industry show.

Bangalore, Karnataka's capital and India's leading technology city, is also positioning itself to become the country's main biotech center.

India's software and back-office service sector, the biotech industry's inspiration, accounted for $12.5 billion in exports and 800,000 workers in the year to March, and expects to grow 30 percent this year.

But the biotech sector has a long way to go.

Mazumdar, managing director of India's leading biotechnology company, Biocon Ltd, told Reuters that some 5,000 scientific workers were employed in biotech in Karnataka, while the nation as whole employs about 25,000 biotech workers.

"Investment in the Indian biotech industry is currently estimated at about $2 billion and is expected to reach about $10 billion by the end of this decade, largely due to multinational collaboration and indigenous research and development efforts," the organizers said in a statement.

Many of India's biotech firms are start-ups seeking capital in a risky field, while multinationals are also investing in their own units. In the latest sign of foreign investment, Germany's MWG Biotech AG set up offices in Bangalore a few weeks ago.

PATENT PUSH

Industry officials say India's entry into a global patent regime under the World Trade Organization (WTO) next year could help boost investments in biotechnology. Developments, such as the mapping of the human gene, could also lead to new opportunities, they said.

Mazumdar said Karnataka firms accounted for $300 million in revenue out of the nation's total estimated biotech revenue of $700 million in the year to March. She added that some 10 billion rupees ($219 million) of biotech funding was expected in the state over the next two years.

Biocon, which specializes in enzymes, human insulin, clinical trials and contract research alone, reported revenues of $120 million. It had a successful share listing last April.

Mazumdar said 25 new biotech firms were established in India in the past year, with 17 located in Karnataka. That raised the state's total number of biotech companies to 110, nearly half of all the 240 biotech firms in India. A 100-acre biotech park in Bangalore is expected to be open in two years, she said.

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