"The life sciences and biopharma equipment business is growing at over 30 percent,"

-S Vishwanathan, director, Labmate Asia

How do you view the life sciences suppliers business in India?

I was personally involved in the analytical instruments quite sometime back in the previous employment and currently I can comment more about the life sciences and biopharma equipment business. The market is still very hot and growing in India over 30 percent. The key drivers would be the speed, innovation and automation.

These days, the products and technologies are launched simultaneously in India. The Indian users are quite knowledgeable and tech savvy. They can quickly evaluate the products and technologies and appreciate them. Further, with the number of international trade shows in India rising, many Indian users have the chance to have a first hand feel of the new products and technologies. The forth coming events are Bioproducts International and Drug Discovery meeting being planned in Mumbai during October 2008. Yet another Big event is the HUGO meeting in September in Hyderabad and Prof. Samir Brahmachari is a key member in this forum.

What are some of the changes that you are seeing in the industry?

It is no more the domestic and international market place. There is only one market "the global market". This is becoming more and more evident now in almost all sectors and technologies. We all know that many of our pharma and biopharma establishments are truly moving towards global standards in terms of products, facilities and quality. We see quite a lot of scientific and technology experts being hired from outside the country. There will be an all round influx of professionals to India, most of them will be of Indian origin, who were working in the western world, for a long time.

Jahanara Parveen