With over 20 years of experience in providing bioservices to the biotech industry, New Delhi-based BI Biotech is looking forward to a significant growth in the coming years. In an interview with BioSpectrum, Vinaya K Dubey, director of sales and marketing, BI Biotech India, shares his views on the future plans of the company, segments catered by it and challenges faced by biosuppliers in India.

Q Which are the services offered by BI Biotech to the life sciences industry in India?
BI Biotech India was established with an objective of providing high quality research products that includes consumables and equipments with excellent customer support and on-time delivery through its distribution network. The company provides wide range of proteins, antibodies, ELISA kits, stem cell products, gene array products, siRNA, transfection reagents and other consumables and instruments for complete solutions for laboratories working in genomics, proteomics, cell biology, immunology and drug discovery.

Q What are the different segments and customers that the company caters to?
BI Biotech India has a focused strategy for the Indian biotech industry by initiating major divisions like genomics, proteomics, cell biology, immunology and healthcare. Our major clients are pharma and CRO companies including government institutions.

Q What are the major contributors to the growth?
BI Biotech India has registered a revenue growth of 21 percent in 2009-10 and in 2010-11, the company is expected to grow at 30–35 percent. The three fundamentals —value, service and support—are the major factors that contributed to the success and growth of the company.

Q What are the key partnerships and collaborations?
The company has partnerships with some of the world-renowned companies like Abnova, AnaSpec, Bachem, Bellco Biotechnology, Cedarlane Laboratories, Global Stem, RayBiotech, R&D Systems, SABiosciences, and Santa Cruz Biotechnology. These partnerships helped to bring out comprehensive range of products that fulfills the need of researchers in the area of specially cell biology.

Q What are the main challenges as far as the product supply is concerned?
One of the major challenges faced by biosuppliers in India is the delay in purchase process that ranges from weeks to several months, which affects the overall product supply. More importance to price over quality/technology is also a major obstacle to the purchase process in India.

Q How is the opportunity for biotech industry in India shaping up?
India has the capability to become a world leader in biotech sector in the coming years. The efforts in this direction have already started so as to bring the public and private partnerships to a common platform. Foreseeing the new opportunities, BI Biotech India reviews its strategy from time to time and strikes new partnerships to tap the business opportunity.

Q Does BI Biotech has any plans to expand its product line?
BI Biotech India is focusing on two major business segments in the biotech industry—clinical trial market and providing solutions for the needs of scientists from immunology and cell biology segments. The company has been entering into new partnerships in the areas of stem cell and nanotechnology, especially in the healthcare sector.

Rahul Koul in New Delhi