‘Our primary focus is to reach out to customers who have more specific needs’ — Chuck Kummeth, President and CEO, Bio-Techne

Bio-Techne empowers researchers in life sciences and clinical diagnostics by providing high-quality reagents, instruments, custom manufacturing, and testing services. Chuck Kummeth, President and CEO, Bio-Techne reveals more about the company’s growth prospect in India in conversation with Sanjiv Das

What made you think of setting up shop in India? Why is this the right time to do so?

We have been doing business in India for over 30 years and this has been through our distributor channels. We are well aware of the important role that India plays in both academic life science research but also in the clinical space with both research, trials and drug manufacturing. As pharma continues to focus more on the use of biologicals as therapeutics it was important for us to be closer to the end user. Opening our own office was the logical next step.

Tell us more about your new office in Pune? How is it going to help you fulfil plans for India and global ambitions?

Our office in Pune currently has four representatives. Our primary focus is to reach out to customers who have more specific needs and would benefit from having a direct dialogue with our company. We can also develop products on a custom basis and this would be another reason where our India customers would benefit from meeting with representatives that are very knowledgeable about our product lines and product development capabilities.

Tell us about your new innovations both for the domestic and the global market?

Bio-Techne products have continued to address our customers’ workflow; from research reagents for the life science industry, to automation in the protein analysis area to molecular tools and diagnostic assays to assess transcriptomics. These are all key workflows that customers need as they develop products that can serve the local as well as larger the global market.

What will be your future plans for the Indian market? How do you plan to raise investment for it?

We will continue to invest in personnel and infrastructure in a manner that will allow the India business to grow and become a much more significant revenue generator for our corporation.

Who are your Indian clients? How is the Indian market different from the global market?

Our customers in India are represented by academics who continue to make pivotal discoveries and elucidate complex biological pathways to better understand the immune system and associated pathologies in the fields of oncology, neurology, inflammation and others. As these ideas mature and translate into potential diagnostics and therapeutics we can continue to serve more industrial customers in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical markets who are in need of biomarkers to stratify their patient population to understand who would most benefit from a newly developed drug or the better appreciate a drug’s full spectrum of effect.

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