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Silicon Valley entrepreneur sights R&D potential

BS Bureau in Hyderabad

With a large English-speaking population and world-class academic institutions graduating 700,000 post-graduates and 3,000 PhDs in bio-sciences each year, India is well positioned to become a cost effective research and development hub for the rest of the world in the near future, according to Bala S Manian, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and founder of the US-based Digital Optics Corporation.

"With strength in medicinal chemistry and pharmacology, information technology and statistics, India has the ability to become a leading base for developing new paradigms for clinical trials. These trials will be based on access to vast and diverse disease populations, and to a large number of qualified clinical practitioners," said Manian, who holds more than 30 patents and won an academy award, while delivering the theme address at the two-day International Knowledge Millennium conference here.

The conference is being organised by ICICI Knowledge Park in association with the Confederation of Indian Industries and the Andhra Pradesh government.

While the economic advantage of outsourcing services in India (particularly where information technology and life sciences intersect) will continue to be an attractive opportunity for India in the near term, making investments in value-added services and technology will lead to the creation of sustainable businesses, Manian told the domestic companies.

Commenting on the challenges ahead for the country, he said that the country does not have the reputation of being a strong player in life sciences.

It also has a negative perception with regard to confidentiality and intellectual property protection.

For example, while the country has signed the World Trade Organisation treaty to respect product patents starting in 2005, the legal infrastructure for recourse is still an open question.

The country has not historically leveraged academic research into commercial opportunities, he opined before a scientific community gathering.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in his address said a high level task force set up by the state government took major decisions to set up a pharma city near Visakhapatnam, an international institute of life sciences at Hyderabad and revamping of pharmaceutical education in the state.

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