The bioinformatics sector has seen a lot of action in recent times. Sun Microsystems, a global IT giant, announced a Center of Excellence (COE) for Medical Bioinformatics at Hyderabad, in collaboration with the Center for DNA Fingerprinting (CDFD) and the Andhra Pradesh government. The center will develop a data warehouse linking genomic data to patient generic and clinical data and develop data mining tools. It would be investing $5 million over a period of time.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has launched Tata Bio-Suite, a portable, versatile software package for life sciences and drug discovery. TCS developed the Tata Bio-Suite over the past two years jointly with some of India's leading academic institutes. And Wipro merged its healthcare focus as one of the verticals under its global IT services business (Wipro Technologies).
These clearly demonstrate that IT services companies are joining the race for a share of the bioinformatics pie. It is not that such companies were not present in India earlier. Accelrys, Makro Technologies, IBM, Mascon Global, Systat Software, Cherrysoft Technologies and Oracle have their units in India working in the bioinformatics space. But the unveiling of the initiatives by Sun and TCS indicates the growing strength of India in this space.
The bioinformatics industry is mushrooming around the IT services centers. That is why we see a lot of companies based in the South-Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai with few companies in the North. Accelrys, Bigtec, Genotypic, Jalaja Technologyis, Infosys, Kshema Technologies, IBM India SysArris Software, Systat Software and Strand Genomics are some of the leading names that have a base in Bangalore.
Similarly in Hyderabad, there are several companies in the bioinformatics space. BioMed Informatics, GVK Biosciences, Caliber Technologies, Bijam Biosciences, a company of the Nagarjuna group, BioMakro, Helix Genomics, Molecular Connections, TCS, Ocimum Biosolutions and Shakti Bio Systems are based in Hyderabad.
In the North there are a few companies like Mascon, LabVantage Solutions, Apticraft Systems and Fundastik Solutions. There are only a couple of companies like SAS India, SciNova Technologies and VLife Sciences Technologies in the west.
The industry is small and is estimated to be Rs 80 crore in size. The Indian players are also small but they have been developing global products and quality services. Strand Genomics, SciNova Technologies, Mascon Life Sciences, Ocimum Biosolutions, Lab Vantage, VLife Sciences, Helix Genomics have come up with a suite of products which are gaining global acceptance.
