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Indian biotech sector seen booming in years ahead

India's budding biotechnology industry, viewed as the next big opportunity for the nation after software, will see revenue rising fivefold to $750 million by 2005, a Confederation of Indian Industry study showed.

By 2007, revenue is seen rising tenfold to $1.5 billion, with $900 million coming from exports, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who heads CII's biotech committee, told a news conference on Thursday.

"You are going to see exponential growth in the years ahead (with) the launch of products like human insulin, vaccines for malaria, cancer and the whole range of diagnostics," she said.

"Today, the nascent industry is beginning to shape up. The launch of GM crops, contract research and clinical research services -- all that is gearing up."

Unlike the United States, where many biotech firms have tapped the capital markets, and Europe's heavily-funded sector, India has seen negligible venture capital funding in the biotech industry.

Mazumdar-Shaw led an 18-member CII team to the United States and Canada to attract investments. CII is the country's leading industry lobby, and 150 biotech companies took part in its survey, compiled over the last nine months.

The lady entrepreneur pioneered biotech in industry in 1978 when she launched Biocon India, which makes biotech products including enzymes for industrial use and pharmaceuticals.

Biocon, reputed to be one of the hottest of the research-driven Indian biotech firms, plans an IPO next year.

TECH CAPITAL LEADS

States like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh located in south India, which are already software hubs, have been aggressively wooing biotech investments from start-ups and leading pharmaceutical companies.

Karnataka, whose capital is the technology city of Bangalore, accounts for 70 biotech firms employing around 3,500 scientists.

Europe's second-largest drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc, Germany's Sartorius and US-based clinical trials firm Quintiles Transnational Corp already have a presence in Bangalore.

Along with the rival states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Karnataka is banking on India's large pool of English-speaking scientific workers to attract biotech investments.

Most Indian biotech firms focus on contract research for global majors, or combine software skills with biotechnology to tap the emerging field of bioinformatics, an intensive data processing niche spurred by the mapping of the human genome.

"There is a huge opportunity for software capability to be translated into the bioinformatics space," Mazumdar-Shaw said.

India is seen facing a challenge from Taiwan and Singapore, which have also joined the biotech race, while Australia has already scored some research successes in drug approvals.

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