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Chitra Phadnis

It is a measure of how much can happen in just one year. Bangalore's biotech event has dropped the `.com' from its name and the second edition is being called Bangalore Bio2002, scheduled to start in the city today.

The dotcom bust was responsible for the name change, admitted Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson Vision Group pf Biotech. The industry also wants to stand out on its own as separate from the IT industry, (though both IT and BT come under the same department and are handled by the same Secretary in the state).

This year's bio event is going to be bigger and better, said the organisers. The number of participants are definitely more, with seventy companies expected to come in against 56 last year. Besides that, there is greater awareness of the industry, though the terms and concepts might continue to baffle the ordinary person.

In the last one year, investments in biotech have been over Rs 150 crore. Not only are there more start ups with VC funding like Metahelix, Aurigene and Gangagen, older companies like Sartorius and Astra Zeneca are also making fresh investments. VC investment was to the tune of Rs 50 crore. During the year, Sartorius set up a large facility and a knowledge centre in Peenya. Astra Zeneca is planning $ 100 million in a new research centre.

Revenues from the industry was around Rs 300 crore. Indian sales in biotech products is estimated at $ 3 billion in 2002. However as part of the $ 250 billion global industry, it is still a fraction. In five years' time, the Vision Group believes that India can grow exponentially and improve its share in the global marketplace.

Biotech in India, specially Karnataka is also looking at leveraging the success of the IT industry and its advantages of skilled manpower, and competitive cost and leadership.

Today will also see the formal commissioning of the Biotech Park, which has been dogged by controversy. After the UAS protested against housing it in its premises, the park has now finally found a place for itself near the International Airport. The biotech park with common facilities is expected to give a fillip to the industry by encouraging start ups. Dr Mazumdar has always been of the opinion that what was hindering the growth of the industry in India was the prohibitive cost of equipment. Individual companies cannot afford to put in the money required for research and pooling of infrastructure was one way out of the problem.

The industry would like a lot more VC interest. Last year, VCs were hesitant to invest in biotech because of its long gestation periods. Now, after the IT slowdown it remains to be seen which way they will sway — whether they will look at BT as an area that may be slow but assures returns or whether they will swing the other way, hunting for areas that promise quick returns to make up for the losses of the previous year.

The industry is also looking for more government sops and for regulatory hurdles to be removed. The Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology started its first course in February 2002 and should help overcome the problem of manpower shortage for the industry.

The things to look out for this year would be the B2B Forum which is aimed at facilitating the industry -academia - investor - venture capitalist interactions; a CEO conclave and an awards Nite.

The theme of the event is `Technology for Life' and the exhibition will showcase the role of biotechnology in healthcare, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals and food processing. Overseas participation has been confirmed by corporates, manufacturers, research centres and government bodies from the US, UK, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore. Sponsored by Biocon, IBM, Strand Genomics, Novozyme, Contact Singapore, Novo Nordisk, Avesthagen, Ernst and Young, Invest UK, and Nasdaq, the event aims to be Asia's largest and most attractive biotech trade show. "Biotechnology has the immediate potential to produce economically important spin offs as well as far reaching positive effects for India, the world society and all its markets. BangaloreBio is a springboard to jumpstart the business growth, employment and ultimately global leadership for the biotech industry,'' according to IT and BT Secretary, Mr Vivek Kulkarni.

BangaloreBio 200 will cover the following topics. A glance at what they mean.

Bioinformatics

As experiments in life science move towards `in silico' from `in vitro', information technology becomes a tool for collecting and analysing biological, especially genetic information. Bioinformatics can help update and fill in gaps in the human gene sequence, find out functionality of genes, correlate gene variations with diseases and so on. nanotechnology: It is used to describe any kind of research where dimensions are less than 1000 nanometers. ( One nanometer is 1/100th of a millimeter). In lithography, line widths of less than a micron have been created, this too is called nanotechnology.

Biofuels

Are plant material and animal waste, and specifically grown crops, which can be burnt to produce energy. It is the oldest source of renewable energy known to mankind. Crops such as willow and oilseed are grown with the specific purpose of being burnt to produce energy. Methane gas given off from waste landfill sites can also generate energy. This also helps reduce the amount of methane in the atmosphere.

Biodiagnostics

Biodiagnostics are used for health services and environmental monitoring. It offers simple detection, which is highly reliable and accurate. DNA identification of a person is one such `biodiagnostic'.

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