Dr K VijayRaghavan's keynote 'the challenges of emerging bioeconomy' highlighted few important must dos for India to tackle its hurdles. He opined, "Dealing with intellectual property and clinical trials has been a challenge. The resources in Japan and India are different from each other. It is important that we learn from Japan as 65 percent of Indian population would soon be below 25 years. India, therefore, must work in the right direction."

Held recently at Tokyo on May, 14-16, 2014, the BIOtech Japan event and its concurrent show, Personalized Medicine and Diagnostics Expo (IVD Japan 2014) attracted a huge gathering from across Asia Pacific and the globe. 

Giving a perspective about India, the secretary mentioned, "India has been an open society. Students from India travel to the US for training in various subjects and have been at the forefront of leading key research programs in universities abroad. We are trying our best to bring talent back. India is realizing that we must open our culture to the world. "

"The nature's engineering works beautifully. Science works to understand the mechanics of -how does it work? how is it built? how does it get that way? Biotech companies try to find solutions by generating and using data generated by research. I feel that both basic and applied research are important. Integrated data is a must," Dr Raghavan told the gathering that comprised prominent researchers and policy makers from Japan. He further said, "Companies must take communication seriously. Evidence must be brought into policymaking and engaging with people is equally important."

"India has to fix its problems not by imitating but by partnering with like-minded countries," he told BioSpectrum's Rahul Koul on the side lines of the event. "The nice thing about our interactions with Japan over the last 30-40 years is that we have built a friendship. So, it is not that we are arbitrarily interacting with them, we are infact interacting with friends. Our collaboration with Tokyo on important programs in various areas is an outcome of that. We must push these collaborations in a big way. We must make sure that Japan is the best destination for Indian students, post docs and vice versa," Dr Raghavan mentioned. (Watch this space for the full interview)