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6 US biotech firms to invest Rs 5 bn in AP

Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad

Six major American biotech companies have evinced interest to make investments of over Rs 5.5 billion in biotech ventures and facilities in Andhra Pradesh, according to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

Addressing a media conference on his return from a 10-day, three-nation tour on Sunday afternoon, Naidu said that the US biotech major Proxymare has expressed willingness to make investment of Rs 4.8 billion ($about 100 million) in the Biotech Park which is coming up in two phases on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

Naidu said that pharma major Eli Lilly also agreed to set up a facility for pharma contract research and drug discovery at Hyderabad.

APIDC Venture Capital Limited and Genomics USA signed a memorandum of understanding for funding biotech projects with an outlay of Rs 200 million.

Monsanto also signed an MoU for setting up a R&D center in ICICI Knowledge Park (adjoining the Biotech park) with an outlay of Rs 50 million. Sun Microsystems has finalised a tie-up for setting up Centre for Excellence in Bioinformatics.

The Supercomputer Centre of University of California, San Diego, entered into a MoU with the University of Hyderabad for research and training in bioinformatics.

Similarly, North Carolina Biotechnology Centre and Biotech International signed MoUs for technical collaboration.

Other biotech ventures that expressed interest to make investments in Hyderabad included BioServe, Cytoplex and Sinclair with investments of Rs 500 million.

Naidu said that during his visit to the US and Ireland, he had focused on four areas such as biotechnology, IT-enabled services, financial district at Hyderabad and special economic zone at Visakhapatnam to attract investments from the US and Irish firms and other multinationals. He visited North Carolina Research Triangular Park, which is the oldest biotech cluster in the US.

"Biotechnology is an emerging technology and, as of today, we have taken a lead in India in this field. Hyderabad, I am sure, will attract lot of biotech companies to set up their operations here. There is lot of future for biotech industry here since Hyderabad is very strong in this area.

"The pharmaceutical companies in and around Hyderabad account for 40 per cent of Indian drug production. We have eight to nine universities in the city with vast research and technical manpower. Hence, everyone wants to come to Hyderabad as there is no other place to go," he pointed out.

Naidu said that some biotech and pharma companies expressed concern over the patents and intellectual property rights issues.

The state government has sought the assistance of the US law firm Reed Smith to work on these issues to dispel the apprehensions among prospective investors in biotech sector in Hyderabad.

He said the state was also interacting with the Union government on issues such as protection of patents and IPR.

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