- Sudhir Kant, CEO of Millipore India

When was the bioscience division created?
The lab water division and the life science division were merged into a single new division called bioscience division on February 18 this year to unlock organizational and operational synergies for the benefit of our customers. This division, combining the strengths of the erstwhile divisions, has increased the quality, width and depth of our market coverage to focus on the diverse and growing needs of the customers with more value-added solutions. Leveraging the technical capabilities of both the talented teams has benefited our customers by accelerating their pace of innovations. Refocused resources and organizational fitness has also helped us partner with our customers with more dynamism. And the team continues to drive our "leading from the future" business philosophy, a belief that has helped us remain in the forefront for more than 50 years.

What have been the other initiatives of Millipore India?
We created a new group called the PMT (Process Monitoring Group) within the biopharmaceutical division in response to customers increasingly seeking our expertise in this area. The new chairman and CEO of Millipore Corporation, Martin Madaus visited Millipore India. He was impressed enough by the Indian operations to assign several new initiatives in the areas of manufacturing and research. These should be operationally ready by the end of 2006-beginning 2007.

The investments made in the access labs offering validation and process development services paid off with some of the major pharmaceutical and biotechnology majors utilizing our world class facilities and services. Customers benefited from this facility, as they need not go to similar facilities in Europe or the US for such requirements now. The order position is so healthy that we are in the process of expanding by recruiting more validation and process development experts.

In February this year, Millipore co-hosted along with the All India Drug Control Officers Confederation (AIDCOC) a very successful and well-received workshop on aseptic processing. It was attended by over 130 pharma professionals and drug regulators.

What are the highlights this year?
Millipore's investments in people, the most important asset in the high technology areas we operate in, continued with our nationwide strength touching 180 personnel. Most of the new people will be deployed in validation, process development, customer support, service and in manufacturing operations.

We introduced several new innovative products and technologies during the year for biopharmaceutical and life science applications and results from the company's concerted efforts in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have started to yield results.

An IT project, which integrates our databases with that of Millipore Corporation, was successfully implemented. This gives us access to the knowledge base and experience of more than 35 countries around the Millipore world. We also signed new business agreements with leading scientific and research institutions and marketing companies in the areas of biotechnology and life sciences.

Namratha Jagtap