'Asia will emerge biotech hub'

Asia will emerge hub for investment in biotechnology sector in the near future.

One of the main reasons for this will be the good profitability margins seen in Indian pharma and biotech companies as compared to US and EU companies, despite the low investment in research and development efforts.

Speaking at BioAsia, global bio business forum, Anand Govindaluri, international coordinator, All India Biotech Association, said: "Asia is a low cost centre for drug development and innovation. This apart, because of advances in information technology, Asia adds value to drug discovery and healthcare services in the form of speed and efficiency."

"While the American and Japanese biotech companies are leaders in R&D productivity, there is relatively low expenditure in research in India," Govindaluri said.

"However, profitability levels are higher in Indian companies compared to their counterparts in the US," he added. "This is one of the main reasons why global biotech companies will be looking at investing in India," Govindaluri said.

"The Indian biotech companies are moving at a fast pace and the estimated business of biotech companies in India are expected to be worth $9 billion by 2008," he added.

"We have abundant talent, strong entrepreneurial culture, low cost of innovation and rich biodiversity. These strengths need to be tapped," Govindaluri said. "We also, however, need to face hurdles like insufficient commercialisation of intellectual property rights (IPR) and lack of patenting culture at academic institutes," he added.

"This apart, there are no strong linkages between the industry and the academia and the venture capital funding for this sector also needs to be strengthened," Govindaluri said.

"China also needs to focus on solving IPR and regulatory issues and the other Asean countries need to focus on removing trade barriers between the participating countries," he added.

"Removal of these hurdles will eventually lead to greater investment in biotechnology in Asia," Govindaluri said.

"This apart, on a global basis there will also be greater alliances in this sector and conventional biotech companies will gradually transform to speciality pharma companies," he added.

"This will be reflected in Asia as well," Govindaluri said.