Dignitaries releasing the Bangalore India BIO 2011 document on the inauguration of 11th edition of Bangalore India BIO 2011, which was held from May4-6 at Bangalore. Seen in picture from L-R: Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson, Karnataka's Vision Group on Biotechnology and CMD, Biocon; Mr Jerome Bonnafont, Ambassador of France to India; Mr BS Yeddyurappa, chief minister of Karnataka; Dr VS Acharya, Minister for Higher Education, Planning & Statistics, Muzrai, Information Technology and Biotechnology, Government of Karnataka; Mr Freddy Svane, Ambassador of Denmark to India; Dr VM Katoch, secretary to the Government of India, Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; and Mr Aravind Jannu, director, Directorate of IT & BT and managing director, KBITS, Government of Karnataka.


The three-day-long Bangalore India BIO 2011, which is India's premier biotechnology event covering all the major trends in biotechnology and its related fields, attracted over 800 delegates from different parts of India and saw participation from countries such as France, Denmark, Singapore, Australia, USA and several other nations from the European Union.

Mr BS Yediyurappa, chief minister, Government of Karnataka, inaugurated the conference and exhibition at the Bangalore International Exhibition Center (BIEC) on May 4, 2011. He handed over the Letter of Intent to Mr Vishal Goel, managing director, Alexandria Equities Management for developing Bangalore Helix, a biotechnology park to be built in public-private partnership, on 56 acres of land in Bangalore.

Mr Goel said, “The park is being built at a cost of 500 crore and will come up in a record two-year time, with the construction commencing from October this year.�

The chief minister also handed over cheques worth 50 lakh to 12 biotech finishing schools, which will be commencing the specialized courses from the June 2011 academic year. These finishing colleges will offer specialized courses that would enable students to focus on one particular topic of their choice, such as fermentation, bioinformatics, clinical trials or clinical data management, instead of covering the entire field of biotechnology.

Mr M N Vidyashankar, principal secretary, Department of IT, Biotechnology and S&T, Government of Karnataka, said, “The event has truly become a gateway to India for the international biotech community. I am glad that the Bangalore Helix project will be put on fast track with the completion of selection process. The state government's commitment to create the much-needed talent pool for the biotech sector will be met through initiatives like the biotech finishing schools, which was launched by the Government of Karnataka in this event.�

Dr V S Acharya, minister for Information Technology and Biotechnology released the program document of Bangalore India BIO 2011. Dr V M Katoch, secretary to Government of India, Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released the Frost & Sullivan report named “Opportunities in pharma biotech Special focus on biosimilars as the next biotechnology sector for India�.

Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson, Karnataka's Vision Group on Biotechnology and chairman & managing director, Biocon, said, “The biotech world is all about partnering, collaborations, leveraging each other's strengths and synergizing them to deliver affordable innovation. It is also about making sure that entrepreneurs are recognized, celebrated and born every day. This is what Bangalore India BIO's focus has always been and this is what the event will do in the years to come. Next year, the conference will focus on safety, security and sustainability.�

Speaking on how value creation can be achieved through innovation, in the field of biotechnology, Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, said that, “We need to create an experimental culture, foster an entrepreneurial environment, and incentivize business differentiation. Concept and ideas aren't enough, they need to be translated and
implied in a manner that is beneficial to others.�

The mega event was organized by the Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka; Vision Group on Biotechnology; MM Activ Sci-Tech Communications and Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), a consortium of Indian biotechnology companies. The event, whose focus theme was - 'Biotech for a better tomorrow', consisted of multi-track conferences, international trade shows, biopartnering meetings, a ceo conclave and a bio-excellence award ceremony among a host of other events.

Multi-track conferences consisted of 21 sessions and featured 116 speakers. The sessions were attended by 815 delegates and 450 organizations from 22 countries
including Denmark, France and Belgium.

Agri and industrial biotech day was inaugurated with the vision talk by Prof Samir K Brahmachari, who is the director general of Council of Science and Industrial Research (CSIR) and is also the secretary to the Government of India, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR).

The BioPartnering India initiative received a phenomenal response with over 530 business meetings. Bio Excellence Awards were presented in the categories of bio-pharma, agri-bio, bio-services, industrial-biotech and bio-informatics. The selection of the various award winners were conducted by ABLE.

Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw announced that the next Bangalore India BIO will be held on February 6-8, 2012.

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Bio Excellence Award winners


From L-R: Mr Balaji Iyengar, CEO-India, Ecron Acunova; Mr B N Manohar, CEO, Stempeutics Research; Mr D A Prasanna, CMD, Ecron Acunova CRO (winner-Bio Excellence Award in bioServices sector); Dr N Prabhudev, VC, Bangalore University and Mr M.N Vidyashankar, principal secretary, Department of IT, Biotechnology, Karnataka.

Dr N Prabhu Dev, vice chancellor of Bangalore University, presented Bio Excellence Awards and Emerging Company of the Year Awards to 10 companies belonging to different sectors such as bioindustrial, biopharma and healthcare, bioservices, bioagri and bioinformatics & systems biology.
Rossari Biotech got the Bio Excellence award under bioindustrial category and Richcore Lifesciences bagged the Emerging Company of The Year award under biopharma & healthcare. Concord Biotech got the Bio Excellence award and Stempeutics Research was named the Emerging Company of The Year award. Ecron Acunova and Suven Lifesciences both received the Bio Excellence award as there was tie between the two firms under the bioservices category, while Anthem Biosciences got the Emerging Company of The Year award.

Nath Seeds got the Bio Excellence award under the category of bioagri. Under the bioinformatics & systems biology category, Strand Life Sciences got the Bio Excellence award and Cellworks Research India was awarded the Emerging Company of the Year Award. Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon, India, said, “There are several parameters based on which the awards have been given. A few of these parameters included the growth of the company, success of commercialization, the kind of products produced by the company, innovation, exports and investment attracted by the company among others.�

Dr Vijay Chandru, chairman & CEO, Strand Life Sciences and president, ABLE said, “Giving recognition to emerging companies not only boosts the company's
morale but in turn it encourages the smaller firms.�

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Agri innovation center in Bangalore
To boost up the developments in the agri-biotech space, the Karnataka government will set up an innovation centre for agri-biotech in Bangalore, worth 80-100 crore in association with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The center will come up on a joint (50:50) partnership basis and would be spread across an area of 200,000 sq ft.

Mr M N Vidyashankar, principal secretary to the Government, Dept of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka said, “The facility would be a greenfield project. The center would be commissioned within 18 to 24 months. The center would be dedicated to promoting R&D of innovative technologies. There would also be an area earmarked for testing and quality control studies.�

ABLE forms new group for regenerative medicine & cellular therapies. Considering the activities that are happening in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine in India, the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), a consortium of Indian biotechnology companies, announced the formation of regenerative medicine & cellular therapies group (RMCT) with three members from different background in the field of stem cells.

The members of the new group include, the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem), an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology; Life Cell International, India's first private cord blood bank that facilitates the cryogenic preservation of umbilical cord blood stem cells at its unique facility in Chennai and Stempeutics Research, a leading stem cell company developing stem cell based medicinal products, with facilities in Bangalore and Manipal (India) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).