The biotech sector is the fastest growing knowledge-driven sector in India. The Indian biotech sector boasts the world’s fourth in terms of volume and thirteenth in terms of value. It registered eighteen percent growth, with record revenues of about USD 2.5 billion in 2008-09. India has many comparative advantages such as skilled human resource pool, extensive institutional infrastructure, state-of-the-art R & D facilities and cost competitiveness in the sector.

Some of the recent developments which bear testimony to the robust growth of Indian biotech industry are: i) development of small anti-viral peptides against Hepatitis C virus, ii) design of inhibitors to work as anti-microbial and anti-malarial agent and iii) India’s participation in the international rice genome sequencing programme where India sequenced 16 Mb of genome containing 1443 genes of the total of 3754 genes in rice genome.

According to an estimate, the biotech business in India has the potential of generating revenues to the tune of USD 5 billion and creating one million jobs by 2012. Biopharmaceuticals alone have the potential to be a USD 2 billion market opportunity largely driven by vaccines and bio-generics. Clinical development services can generate about USD 1.5 billion while bioservices or outsourced research services can garner a market of US$ 1 billion. The balance USD 500 million is attributable to agricultural and industrial biotechnology.

However, translation of biotechnology into a successful business, is confronted by many challenges such as huge R & D cost and long gestation period, issues related to technology transfer and technology absorption, issue of patentability and price affordability, and hurdles in promoting public confidence. Therefore, policies that foster a balance between sustaining innovation and facilitating technology diffusion need to be put in place.

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Tags: biopharmaceuticals, biotechnology, genome, patentability, technology absorption, technology diffusion

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Global Economy, Indian Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.