Biotech Policy in January 2005, says Kapil Sibal

The Union ministry of science & technology will announce the country's first national biotechnology policy in January 2005 to provide the much-needed boost to this industry.

The new policy is expected to focus on the development of human resources, setting up of biotechnology parks in the special economic zones (SEZs), identifying select cities for creating biotech clusters and a nodal agency for applying genetically modified seeds and technology in the farm sector.

Speaking to mediapersons, Union minister of state for science and technology Kapil Sibal said that his ministry was also working on a separate policy on bioinformatics and agri-biotech for the development and regulation of these two sectors.

Sibal also met the representatives of the Association of Biotechnology-Led Enterprises (ABLE) and said that the comprehensive biotech policy would address their concerns for accelerating the growth of the emerging sector.

"This will be the first national policy for the biotech sector the government will be coming out with after a similar policy was announced for science and technology in 2003. ABLE has raised a host of issues pertaining to regulation, taxation, clearances and funding. The UPA government is committed to the rapid growth of the sector to replicate the success story of the IT industry. The ministry is seized of the issues that need to be tackled for creating the enabling environment and the supporting infrastructure to make the sector generate about $5 billion in revenues over a decade from less than $1 billion currently," Sibal said.

In its interaction with the minister, ABLE sought a level-playing field in healthcare, especially in the diagnostic equipment to compete with the duty-free imported goods. ABLE felt that with the import duty on raw materials and excise on the end product, indigenous equipment was not in a position to compete with the low-cost imported one in the domestic market.

In response to this concern, Sibal said, "I will take up the matter with the finance ministry. The new policy will aim at ensuring a level-playing field to the manufacturers."

Sibal said that the ministry was unable to set up a dedicated biotech fund due to resource constraints . He added that his ministry would, instead, partner with entrepreneurs by giving the technology developed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) labs for equity in the company.

The new policy will formulate the guidelines for a novel model of public-private partnership to facilitate the growth of the sector in association with the academia and the R&D labs across the country.

"By raising the seed capital, an entrepreneur can set up the start-up to develop the product for commercial production subsequently. The ministry will licence the production process for generating returns in exchange of the CSIR technology," he added.

The minister also disclosed that the Patents Act would be amended in the winter session of Parliament to comply with the WTO agreement on the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime coming into force from January 1, 2005.

"Similarly, a regulatory framework will be in place by mid-2005 for facilitating single-window clearances to the biotech industry, including speedy procedures for import of life-sensitive products such as micro organism and enzymes," he said.