Bangalore INDIA BIO 2013 – India’s Biotech forum renowned for calibrating the pulse of the biotechnology industry recently concluded on a high note. The three-days brought together global leaders from the life sciences sector for a comprehensive overview of this rapidly changing industry envisaging India as a $100 billion biotech hub. The event was organised by the Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, Vision Group on Biotechnology, MM Activ Sci-Tech Communications.
The forum consisted of 22 sessions with participation from 110 speakers, 878 delegates, over 500 organisations. 100 exhibitors from various verticals of life sciences industry like biopharmaceuticals, bio-suppliers, bio-informatics, bio-medical devices participated in the exhibition and attracted over 3000 plus business visitors.
The gathering was attended by delegates from more than 20 countries including Scotland, the US (Georgia), Canada (Alberta) and Australia (Victoria) and also from Atlanta, Missouri from the US, Germany, the UAE, France, the UK, Spain, Israel, Mexico, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore and European and South East Asia countries. Seven Indian states, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Haryana and Assam also participated in the exhibition.
Distinguished Speakers at Bangalore INDIA BIO 2013 included Dr Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairperson, Karnataka Vision Group on Biotechnology; Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon; Prof K Vijay Raghavan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, Prof Charles ffrench-Constant, Director, Centre of Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Charles French; Dr Karen Bernstein – Co-Founder and Chairman, BioCentury, US; Prof Anil K Gupta, Executive Vice Chairperson, National Innovation Foundation – India, Professor of Indian Institute of Management (IIMA); Prof David Koelle, Professor of Medicine, Adjunct Professor, Global Health and Laboratory Medicine, University of Washington; Affiliate Investigator, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; Affiliate investigator, Benaroya Research Institute, US.
Conveying his pleasure on the successful completion of the 13th edition, ISN Prasad, IAS – Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka said, “We are pleased with the outcome of this edition of Bangalore India Bio. A number of future initiatives are being looked at to promote sustainable collaboration between different stakeholders committed to improving quality of life from across India and globally creating opportunities and encouragement for young scientists and researchers to engage in ‘Biotech for a better tomorrow.’
Prasad further said, “Karnataka is proud to be the pioneering state involved in promoting biotechnology in a big way. Collaborations and MoUs will play a significant role to demonstrate a collective commitment to ensure Karnataka and India are more competitive and continue to benefit from rapidly growing global biotech industry.”
Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson, Karnataka Vision Group on Biotechnology; Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon said, “Bangalore India Bio has grown in stature, we have seen a huge surge in number of delegates, numbers of country participation, the number of forums we have created within this conference, the partnering forums, the poster sessions, both the exhibition and the conference have taken a new hue. It has evolved with times, it has become far more professional, far more serious. We are using this as a platform for all stakeholders to really address some of the key challenges and issues that the Indian biotech sector faces, the challenges in terms of international perception. I think it is making a huge difference to how the Indian biotech sector is now being perceived.”
Commenting on the event Dr K Vijay Raghavan – Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India said, “Entrepreneurs in biotech space, Government and the academia need to work together and Bangalore India Bio has a very invigorating environment to see that happen.”
David Wetherell, President and Chief Operating Officer, Burrill Healthcare Venture and Private Equity Funds US said, “It has been a great experience at Bangalore India Bio. Clearly in India, you probably have the greatest concentration of human and intellectual capital in the world and lot of this is concentrated in Bangalore. This has come out very clearly in Bangalore India Bio.”
Key highlights:
Three industry reports were released. They were ‘Indian Biotechnology: The roadmap to the Next Decade and beyond by ABLE’; ‘Opportunities for Fermentation Industry & Biotechnology’ by ABLE and Report on ‘Funding Your Science Idea’ of Atharva Life Sciences Consulting.
Two MoUs were signed with KBITS (Government of Karnataka), one by Scottish Development International (SDI), an international economic development arm of the Scottish Government and the other by the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Atlanta, Georgia, US. Bangalore India Bio 2013 facilitated 372 B2B meetings through the Bio Partnering tool – InterlinX.
Bio-Excellence Awards were presented at the event. In Biopharma and Health Care category, Serum Institute of India bagged the award and Stempeutics Research bagged the Emerging Company of the year award.
In the Agri-Biotechnology category, Metahelix Life Sciences bagged the award. In the Bioservices category Quintiles Research India received the award and the emerging company award was bagged by Anthem Biosciences. Bio-Industrial category was bagged by Praj Industries. In the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology categories, the award winner was Strand Life Sciences and the Emerging Company of the year was Xcelris Labs. Exhibition awards were also presented.
Poster presentations were held, where-in, young minds were given an opportunity to showcase their innovative ideas. Over 45 entries were received, of them 35 posters were selected. The best poster awards were bagged by G Suhasa, BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore; Neeraj Kumar Garg from Punjab University won second place and third places was bagged by Pavithra N of PES Institute of Technology. A special recognition was given to Nisha GJ of Dayanada Sagar College of Engineering and Nidhi Malviya, Al-Ameen College of Pharmacy.
A workshop was conducted by NSRCL- IIM Bangalore to nurture entrepreneurial opportunities in Biotechnology a boon especially for aspiring bio-entrepreneurs and researchers. Preliminaries of state level ‘BioQuiz 2013’ was conducted across Karnataka where-in large number of students participated and the four finalists battled it out in the Grand Finale of ‘BioQuiz 2013’. The awards were presented by Former Indian cricketer Anil Kumble. The first place was won by Arun Panchapakesan and Vijay Ramesh from RV College of Engineering Bangalore.
The second place was won by St Aloysius College, Mangalore represented by Gunjan Gupta and Sulakshana K. The third place was bagged by University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, Belgaum represented by Shwetha Kumari and Sambhavana. The fourth place was bagged by Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering (SJCE), Mysore represented by Sheshadri SA and Chandan Pande.
EP News Bureau – Mumbai
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