Bangalore Bio 2004 to kick off on July 11

Bangalore will showcase its leadership in biotechnology and will present the vast business opportunity in this sector at the Bangalore Bio 2004, which will be held from July 11 to 13.

The three-day event will be inaugurated by Kapil Sibal, Union minister for science and technology.

Announcing the details of the event, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairperson of Vision Group and chairperson and managing director of Biocon, said: "The theme of the conference is 'Biotechnology for a Billion People'. This is in sync with the national agenda of reaching out to the common man. Over 500 delegates are expected to attend the conference."

"Bangalore Bio has built a strong brand for itself which attracts all the stakeholders in the sector to participate in this event. Bangalore Bio has also played a key role in placing India on the global biotechnology map. Today, Indian biotechnology is poised for global success and Bangalore Bio is the ideal platform to get an insight into the exciting developments that are taking place in this sector," Mazumdar said.

Mazumdar said that the event had so far attracted nearly 100 participants from different parts of the country and abroad.

According to M K Shankaralinge Gowda, secretary to department of IT, biotechnology, science and technology, government of Karnataka, "Karnataka in general and Bangalore in particular is ideally positioned for development of knowledge and R&D-based industries like biotechnology. Our formidable bio cluster, impressive human resource pool and proactive government make Bangalore a power house that no biotech business professional can ignore."

Gowda said that after the event, the government would revise the biotechnology policy to give it more teeth.

The conference sessions will be held at the J N Tata Auditorium and will feature international biotechnology experts on various topics including R&D outsourcing, vaccines and therapeutics, diagnostics, industrial and environmental biotechnology, agricultural biotechnology, clinical research, intellectual property rights, biologics manufacturing, IT-enabled bio services and bio invest.

Some of the key participants include Biocon, Ranbaxy, Sartorious, Millipore, AstraZeneca, Alfa Lava, Avesthagen, Strand Genomics, TCS, Pall Life Sciences, Aurigene, CSIR, DBT, states of Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and countries like the UK, Japan, Germany, Australia, Canada, Korea and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania among others.