The Indian biotechnology market is expected to grow to US$ 204 million by 2003 and US$ 408 million by 2007.Many Indian
companies
have introduced products of original
research through technology transfer from R&D institutions in India in the field of vaccines, diagnostics and reagents. Some others have teamed up with foreign
companies for sourcing technologies and are experimenting with new products produced by foreign technologies, with a view to introduce them into the Indian market within the framework of Indian laws. Outsourcing of R&D in biotechnology represents a tremendous opportunity for Indian companies to do contract research for overseas corporations. The current global spend on outsourced R&D is approximately US$ 7 billion and is expected to grow at 30 per cent per annum for the next 5 years. There are around 50 R&D labs in the public sector, providing high quality R&D and over 20 conducting research in specific areas of biotechnology. In addition to these, there are companies in Bangalore with excellent technical manpower and world-renowned institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Jawahar Lal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), all of which provide high-quality R&D services to organisations worldwide.Global biotech majors including IBM Life Sciences, Incyte Genomics, Affymetrix and AntexBiologics have shown interest in forging partnerships with Indian companies in the biotechnology sector. There are enormous investment opportunities in the following areas : vaccines,bioactive therapeutic proteins, agriculture sector and contract research, For vaccines: India’s huge population makes it among the world’s largest markets for vaccines of all types. India faces a growing demand for new-generation and ‘combination’ vaccines, such as DPT with Hepatitis B, Hepatitis A and injectable polio vaccine, besides several veterinary and poultry vaccines. Apart from conventional vaccines, the rDNA and nucleic acis vaccines have further market potentials as and when approved by the regulatory authorities. For bioactive therapeutic proteins: Opportunities exist for speeding up production facilities, based on licensing and other forms of cross-border relationships for all therapeutic products approved for marketing in India, namely Insulin, Alpha, Interferon, Hepatitis B surface antigen based vaccine, Erythropoietin, Streptokinase, Chymotrypsin, PGF, GCSF, Gm-CSF, Interleukins and others, which is expected to grow to US$200 million in 2005.For Agriculture sector: Hybrid seeds, including genetically modified seeds represent new business opportunities based on yield improvement, and development of a production base in biopesticides and biofertilisers would facilitate India’s entry into the growing organic or natural foods market. The Genetically Modified crops like corn, cotton, millet, mustard and other nutritionally improved vegetables also provide good potential in the agriculture sector.For Contract Research: The cutting edge of the biotech sector is development of new products. Indian pharma companies possess competitive skills in chemical synthesis and process engineering, which they can leverage to develop new chemical entities, and with the application of bioinformatics tools, tap into the high-potential biogenerics segment. Under a positive IPR regime, the synergies in pharma-biotech relationships can be successfully turned into an opportunity for undertaking inernational contract research in segments of new drug discovery, clinical trials, and bioinformatics related services.