What does Biotechnology mean?

The term “Biotechnology” refers to the use of living organisms or their products to modify human health and the human environment.

Biotechnology has found application almost everywhere whether we talk about revolution in drug industries, food industries, agriculture to your dining table.

We will discuss about them all with repect to india. Indian Biotechnology sector has geared up. The Indian biotechnology sector today comprises over 350 companies generating revenues of about $2 billion that are estimated to reach $5 billion by 2010. The sector has been growing at between 35 per cent and 40 per cent per annum for the last three years. The current fiscal alone saw revenues cross $2 billion from $1.5 billion the previous year.

Bioinformatics

The industry is relatively small with an estimated size of US$ 17.3 million in 2003-04. Indian players, though small, have been developing global products and quality services. Indian companies like Strand Genomics, SciNova Technologies, Mascon Life Sciences, Ocimum Biosolutions , Lab Vantage , VLife Sciences and Helix Genomics have come up with a slew of products, which are gaining global acceptance. There are opportunities in India for data mining, gene annotation and development of software bioinformatics interfaces. The sector has seen dynamic development in recent times. IT services companies are joining the race for their share of the bioinformatics
pie. Accelrys,Makro Technologies , IBM,Mascon Global and Oracle already have units in India, working in the bioinformatics space.The recent unveiling of initiatives by Sun Microsystems, and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
indicates India’s growing strength in this area. Sun Microsystems, a global IT giant, has announced a Centre of Excellence (COE) for medical bioinformatics at Hyderabad, in collaboration with the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) and the Government of Andhra Pradesh. The Centre will develop a data warehouse linking genomic mining tools. It would be investing US$ 5 million over a period of time. TCS has launched Tata Bio-Suite, a portable, versatile software package for life sciences and drug discovery. Tata
Bio-Suite was developed jointly TCS and some of India’s leading academic institutions. For more details of Bioinformatics Companies in india download the PDF

Genomics

The mapping of the human genome has thrown open immense challenges and opportunities in functional genomics and proteomics. India has the largest human biodiversity in the world with close to 600 well-defined ethnic groups. India is in a unique position to harness this opportunity through researching its vast and varied disease populations
in conjucntion with this human diversity. Indications already exist in Indian gene pools to provide new information on breast cancer and colon cancer, asthma, diabetes and a host of other diesease segments. Several companies have already taken initiatives to harness this opportunity.

Vaccines

In 2003-04, the vaccines market grew at 18.64% and accounted for 47% of the total biopharma segment, with sales of US$ 253 million. Exports have been a major contributor, with several vaccines being procured by UNICEF/WHO programmes. The recombinant market in India had so far been dominated by imports of established global brands. Major MNCs active in the Indian vaccine market inlcude GlaxoSmithKline, Aventis and Wyeth. The market has become increasingly competitive with the entry of a number of domestic players including Bharat Biotech, Biological E,GlaxoSmithKline , Cadila Healthcare,Haffkine Bio Pharmaceuticals ,Panacea Biotec , Serum Institute of India, Shantha Biotechnics and Wockhardt.For Detailed information on Indian companies producing vaccines download the PDF..

Diagnostics

The total diagnostics market in 2003-04 stood at US$ 56 million and accounted for 10.5% of biopharmaceutical sector sales. The segment grew by about 46% over the previous year. Monoclonal antibodies and polyclonal antibodies for disease immunogiagnosis,tissue typing ,clinical assays and research constitute a huge portion of the market. India’s large population base has created a huge demand for immunology kits for pregnancy detection ,HIV , TB and malaria . The immuno-diagnostics market is expected to increase four to five times by 2005.

At present, almost half the diagnostic kits in the country are imported, expensive and often ineffective, as they are not designed for Indian climatic conditions or Indian strains of microbes. Only a few Indian companies manufacture diagnostic kits. For Detailed information on Indian companies producing Diagonostic kits download the PDF.

Industrial biotech

The size of the bioindustrial sector was estimated to be US$ 54 million in 2003-04. Industrial enzymes comprise a major share of the total market. Leading Indian companies in the sector include Biocon, Novozymes, Advanced Biochemicals, Rossari Biotech and Maps India.Considering the opportunity in the industrial enzymes sector, agri and pharmaceutical companies like Excel Industries and Concord Biotech are making inroads into the segment. Even the Danish company CHR Hansen has set up shop in India to market its products that are used in the food
processing industry.

(Source: India Brand Equity Foundation)