BioAsia 2013, the tenth edition of the annual biotechnology and life sciences platform, will witness for the first time the participation of top officials from biopharma, biotech and health regulatory agencies from across the globe.
Another new feature being added to the event this year is AgBioAsia, a standalone summit on agricultural biotechnology being organised by the Federation of Asian Biotech Associations (FABA), International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics and the state government.
The organisers of the three-day event, to be held here from January 28, stated that it was for the first time they had received confirmation for participation by regulatory agencies from the US, UK, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Czech Republic, Malaysia, Jordan, Lithuania and Sweden besides India.
According to Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council director general PV Appaji, more than 200 Indian companies are expected to interact with the regulators during the conference.
This year’s event would also witness over 30 per cent rise in the number of registered delegates at about 600 as against the participation 450 delegates in BioAsia 2012. The organisers have already received 400 registrations from 45 countries and an additional 200 delegates are expected to register onsite.
Explaining about the ensuing conference, FABA vice president, KV Raghavan, told mediapersons here on Tuesday that the global market for biologics and biosimilars, the main focus of BioAsia, was estimated at $100 billion. India has around 100 pharmaceutical companies that have active interest in these areas.
State principal secretary of industries and commerce, K Pradeep Chandra, said there was good potential for this field and the international response was encouraging. South Korea had evinced interest in forging tie-ups between its biotech parks and the ones promoted by the state government . There were also serious enquires from countries like the Netherlands and Australia in this regard.
GVK Biosciences chief executive officer, Manni Kantipudi, said the global biological market, which was growing at 19 per cent a year, was expected to be $225 billion by 2015.
Among the top ten drugs sold in 2010, as many as five were biologics. This number was expected to increase to seven by 2015.
