In India till now, Bioresearch is considered to be a bit costly

31 August 2017 | Interviews

As long as bioresearch percolates down to more universities and research oriented institutes compared to US, Europe and Japan it will remain as a challenge like other research segments.

Dr. Ashes Ganguly

Dr. Ashes Ganguly

Dr Ashes Ganguly, founder Director of Cryogen Instruments India, one of the leading suppliers of Speciality/Isotopic Gases and Nuclear Medicines in the country, is heading the Indian Analytical Instrument Association (IAIA) as president since 2015 till 2018. In an interaction with BioSpectrum he shares his views as President of IAIA on government’s Make in India scheme and GST etc. Excerpts of the interview-

1. According to you, what are the trends in biosuppliers market with respect to life sciences and healthcare industry in India?

The Bio-suppliers market in India is certainly growing at an average rate of 10%+ for the Life science and Healthcare industry in India. But it is certainly not growing as expected.

2. How many companies (manufacturers and distributors) are currently operating in this space?

There are few 100’s of companies that are operating in India either has a distributor or manufacturer but might be only a couple of dozen companies are having a turn over more than $ 10 million.

3. According to you how many people are engaged (being employed with companies) in this space and do you see the industry will absorb more candidates in the coming period?

Keeping a part of CRO & Clinical Research there are around 10K+ employees in this industry but there is no definite data in our hand from which we can conclude the exact numbers. For that it’s a herculean exercise which we have to perform to get the exact numbers wherein all companies should be transparent to share the employee strength as well as turn over too.

4. How do you see the opportunities for Bio suppliers for life sciences and healthcare industry?

As we said earlier that the growth is around 10%+ on an average so the Life sciences and Healthcare opportunities is quite optimistic compared to the average world growth.

5. With government of India launching Innovate in India (i3) program, how do you see the growth of the industry?

It’s too early to make any statement but we appreciate the positive steps taken by the Govt. of India.

6. Which are the major segments of biosuppliers? How do you see the growth of these segments?

DNA Sequencing, Structural elucidations, Stem Cells, Gene mapping etc. are the real challenges and exciting fields for bio research now. The growth can be quite significant provided the acceptance and standardizations settle fast.

7. What are major challenges before biosuppliers industry?

In India till now, Bioresearch is considered to be a bit costly and high end research field, as long as it percolates down to more universities and research oriented institutes compared to US, Europe and Japan it will remain as a challenge like other research segments.

8. What are your views on GST?

GST as all of us are aware it’s a process of standardizations and unifications of the Tax structure in India, so we expect it will benefit the consumers as well as the suppliers too at large in the long run, but there are some few challenges that we are facing during the time of implementations although I am sure if we have a transparency and commitment towards it, GST will be successful in India in the near future.

9. What are your views on government’s Make in India scheme?

It’s always welcome, the Government’s view of Make in India scheme, but we industry players need to understand that we are niche players with High Technology Inputs which till now the Indian infrastructure of production process doesn’t support very well. So we have to collectively work towards that first and then look at Make India initiative in our field. In addition any product we manufacture until and unless its Globally accepted it will be never be successful in today’s business scenario in numbers. So we have to look into on that then only we will get the success of dominance in our industry.

10. India still is a major importer of high-end equipment/ instruments used in life sciences R&D and manufacturing. According to you how India can build its own biosuppliers industry?

Till now our Industry is import based. However there are very few initiatives that are taking place for manufacturing our product in India in recent times, but as an association we will remain open to support any good cause of productivity. At first we have to give emphasis on the education level, where our next generation students rather than migrating abroad, should be ready to give their time, talent and inputs to the country, simultaneously our investors have to be open to give due compensations and better R&D environment. Thirdly the company’s marketing and service support team should be globally exposed. So there are a couple of issues, until and unless all facets of activities is up to the global standard it will be very difficult for us to be a dominant force in the global market. Which we as an association are taking a few initiatives, but I feel these type of results can only come after a decade.

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