The eighth edition of Bangalore Bio 2008 was on from 24-26 April 2008. The theme for this year was "Global Partnering" with participation from over 85 International and National speakers, over 700 delegates from the industry, R&D, policy makers and academia, over 30000 visitors, 150 leading global & Indian exhibiters. The event attracted the largest gathering of International Biotech fraternity. There were more than 100 delegates from 14 countries like USA, Australia, France, UK, Germany, Italy, Holland, Japan, and Malaysia participating in this event. Merck & Co. Inc, one of the world's biggest biopharma companies, was the Global Partner.
Victoria State, Australia was the Country partner with 16 companies and delegation of 40 professionals. They had conducted over 100 B2B meetings with the Indian companies during the three days. The Australian companies were able to build good commercial relationship with many Indian companies. They also conducted meeting with other Indian states namely Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and the department of IT and BT of Karnataka.
France participated as the International Partner with 15 companies from Health Sciences and Biotech sector with a delegation of 45 biotech experts. The French companies had over 150 B2B meetings with the Indian companies.
In tune with the core theme of Global Partnering, the International Conference featured four successful case studies of cross border partnering with Indian Enterprises addressed by Advinus & DNDi, Merck & Nicholas Piramal, Connexios Life Sciences & Rheoscience and Avesthagen with Groupe Danone.
Nobel Laureate Prof.
Sidney Altman delivered the Inaugural Keynote address at the
event. Altman's in his speech highlighted one of the most puzzling questions
confronting bio scientists who have long sought to determine which was
the first bio molecule-DNA or protein. In light of Altman's research,
it now appears that RNA molecules were the first bio molecules to contain
both the genetic information and play a role as biocatalysts.
He further spoke on catalytic RNA that has also given gene technology researchers a new tool with the potential for creating a new defence against infection.
Altman himself experimented with a method to combat bacteria's resistance to antibiotics by inserting artificial genes in bacteria to make them more sensitive to ampicillin and chloramphenicol, two widely used antibiotics.
Biotech companies in the South East Asian countries must focus more on producing their own end products for domestic markets as well as exports, said Professor Altman. Altman said the institutions and companies should also focus more on contributing to the educational institutes and non-profit organizations, which are responsible for generating 80-90% of new ideas that worth commercialization.
About 90% of ideas that eventually become patents in the hands of companies are generated in academic institutions, Altman said. "In terms of contribution to the society, the biotech sector stands in the top league. For an investment of one dollar, this sector is giving back $1.25 to the company and 50 cents to the society. 25% of the benefits are being ploughed back to the society. Two thirds of the income of this sector is going for the HR costs and thus it is a major job creator," he added.
Dynamism of the sector and its current rapid growth rate is amazing, said H.E. Jerome Bonnafont, Ambassador of France in India at the inaugural session. "Biotech development is different from any other development as it touches the secrets of life and has ethical demands. India has been addressing those questions with due respect to human life," he said.
Other Highlights:
• Over 35 papers were presented by young scientists
and innovators in the Poster Session.
•
Bangalore Bio 2008 facilitated over 500 one-to-one business meetings
for potential collaborations, partnerships & alliances.
•
Many young researchers and scientists from leading Indian and International
research laboratories like, CSIR, ICAR, DAE, DBT, DST participated in
Bangalore Bio 2008.
This year's main event sponsor was Avesthagen and Biocon was the platinum sponsor, the CEO Conclave was sponsored by Advinus, Canara Bank sponsored the awards nite, State of Victoria, Australia was the country partner and Govt. of Chhattisgarh was the partner State. UK Trade and Investment was the co-host for the conference along with Biozeen and Metahelix hosted the AgriBiotech Day. The Diamond sponsors were Alexandria and Novozymes, the gold sponsors were Manipal Acunova and GE Healthcare.
Media support was provided by BioSpectrum, ExpressPharma, Chronicle Pharmabiz, Radio City 91.1 FM, Businesswire India, Kong Posh, The Indian Pharmacist and Advanced Biotech and the event was supported by KBITS and ABLE.
Key Highlights at various sessions
Dr M.K.Bhan, Secretary
Government of India, Dept of bio technology
•
We need new science, very fundamental science to find answers to actual
increase in gene as against minimising loses of fighting infection.
•
We need to strengthen our basic science scenario so that we prepare
ourselves tomorrow by innovation.
•
There is an urgent need to educate the people about the latest technological
developments taking place so that they have a proper balance of education
and skill. This is one of the major concerns that need attention.
Dr. Richard Tillyer,
Senior Vice President, Head of Worldwide Preclinical Development,
Merck & Co., Inc.
•
He stressed on the fact that our current business of clinical pharmaceuticals
must substantially improve performance, in terms of both innovation
and execution. Merck, and specifically the Research Labs, have impressive
global capabilities for both innovation and execution and have a recognized
track record in the delivery of important medicines and vaccines.
•
As part of our strategy for business success, Merck intends to maximally
leverage its excellent internal capabilities by partnering with the
very best external centers of innovation and execution, to discover
and deliver the most innovative products to the marketplace.
•
The presentation highlighted some progress realized to date, as well
as a perspective on opportunities for the Merck Research labs to further
partner and source capabilities in the areas of drug discovery and preclinical
development.
•
He spoke about the strategy he used for his organisation, with the focus
on partnering
Prof Charles. L. Cooney, Dept of chemical engineering and faculty Director Deshpande Centre of technological innovation, MIT, USA
•
He has a strong connection with India since 1989 and has been an integral
part of Bangalore Bio since it was in its infant stage.
•
He says that 'change is good' and that there is gradual development
in India in the field of Biotechnology, in Bangalore it has been particularly
spectacular. Biotechnology is now a multi billion Dollar industry.
•
He addressed on the global health needs and that affordable technology
is the major challenge facing the biotech and pharmaceutical industries
today.
•
While scientific discovery proceeds rapidly, translation of science
into therapeutic impact and delivery to the patient limits realization
of the benefits of Science.
•
The innovation from the convergence of engineering and biology is the
foundation for the next revolution in biology that promises to accelerate
the translation of Science to improved health.
IPR scenario in India - "Capacity building an urgent need"
Intellectual Property and Claims Issues discussed at Bangalore Bio 2008
One of the important topics discussed in the Bangalore Bio 2008 was IP & claims. It was discussed that there was an increased focus in commercialization of IPRs in the Bio Tech sector. This special session reflected the industry's views and suggested the necessary steps to improve the scenario in India.
The Profiting from IPRs depend on various factors such as end user needs, protected IP, market size and dynamics, commercial feasibility and commercial partners. Only 10 percent of all the patents granted in the field of biotechnology are block busters in the commercial platform.
Bio-tech industry
needs skilled manpower more than ever
India also needs more finishing schools, certified professionals and
PhDs
While the bio-tech industry is growing at a healthy rate, the companies are facing a major shortage of skilled human resources. Addressing this issue at the Bangalore Bio 2008 a special session on 'Developing Manpower in Biotechnology' was organized at the Bangalore Bio 2008.
India should look into other activities like focus development where there is growth. Post graduate degrees should be taken into two streams - research development and industrial training.
Biotech, the next emerging market for the IT industry
Biotechnology as an industry is developing into a huge market for the global IT industry as IT infrastructure and security is becoming indispensable for the sector. The challenges and opportunities in bridging the IT - BT divide was discussed at a session - "IT in Biotechnology - New Solutions for Life Sciences," at Bangalore Bio 2008.
The general censuses of the discussion were that Bio-technology is a big opportunity for IT companies to explore and capitalise. And the needs are ever increasing.
Novozymes, Syngene, Serum Institute & Rasi Seeds Bagged BIO Excellence Award at Bangalore Bio 2008
At the event, awards
were given to participants under various categories of Design and Innovation,
best managed, and bio-content and information. Smt. Vatsala Watsa, Additional
Chief Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka gave away the Bio Excellence Award
to Novozymes South Asia Pvt Ltd in Industrial Biotechnology Category,
Syngene International in Biotech Services Category, Serum Institute
of India in Pharma Biotechnology Category and Rasi Seeds Pvt. Ltd in
Agribiotechnology Category.
• Global Biotech Opportunities With-in India and Overseas" was one of the topics discussed in this session.
As Biopharma accounted for 71% of total Biotech market in India (2006-07), there was lot of scope for those who were working on Biosimilars. There were opportunities for Indian companies to move ahead in the value chain in the development of Biosimilars for domestic market as well as for the European and Australian partners.
Biosimilar is a product of biological source and similar to a biological medicinal product, but different from a generic product.
NBRA act draft by September, calls for opinions through their website
With the NBRA act announcement 'round the corner, the central authority for Bio-technology's NBRA session was a much awaited discussion and debate at the event.
The National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority (NBRA) act draft copy would be ready by September 2008, and would be open for discussions and comments after that. Though the debate on this issue is going on for the past five years, things were now on the fast track now as the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has already initiated discussions with FDA of the US and Canadian Authorities. In the next few months DBT would conduct at least six stakeholders' meetings in major cities of India, two industry meetings and internal regulatory meetings in an exercise to finalize the draft of the act, according to Dr S R Rao, Director, DBT. NBRA would take into account all the concerns of the industry and try to eliminate overlapping of the areas of other similar authorities in order to act as a true catalyst for the industry. It would not hesitate to take expertise and suggestions from any person or institution of any country.
Once the draft copy of the act was ready, it would be posted on DBT website for comments and public debate and anybody could send in their views to nbra.dbt@nic.in. Panelists suggested to the government to use online communication and feedback mechanisms to implement things speedily and to maintain transparency.
NBRA should facilitate companies with suggestions by acquiring international expertise on the best practices and enable Indian companies compete with their foreign counterparts, panelists opined.
Govt. Sops for start-ups, offers grants for National Priority Projects
Bangalore Bio 2008 ended on an interesting session called "Investment Opportunities in Biotech sector".
The example of Canada, was sited where the government is playing a lead role in directly facilitating to convert the ideas generated in the academic institutions into commercially and socially useful projects. India also needs such model to quickly commercialize the ideas and inventions at academic level, he said.
Agri-Biotech Day
at Bangalore Bio 2008
Balanced Approach between Food and Biofuels is Required, Dr V Prakash
For the third time, Bangalore Bio dedicated a full day for agricultural biotechnology called Agri-Biotech Day.
Bangalore Bio 2009 would be held on 15 -17, April 2008.