The ninth edition of Bangalore Bio, India's premier biotechnology event witnessed a series of funding announcements by the government of India and state government to the tune of around Rs 285 crore for setting up biotech parks in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. The central government has also given the clearance to open a genome sequencing centre.
Of the Rs 285 crore, Rs 250 crore is allocated to establish IT and BT parks in the districts. Both the centre and the state would be chipping in 50 per cent each. These include Agri-Biotech Park at Dharwad, Marine Biotech Park at Mangalore, Animal House at Bidar and Phyto-pharmaceuticals Biotech Park at Mysore. The technical support for the biotech park are from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, Karnataka Veterinary Animal Fisheries University and Central Food Technology Research Institute (CFTRI).
The centre has also cleared the Genome Sequencing Unit, which is part of the Karnataka Bio-IT initiative. The unit will come up in the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) located within the Bangalore Helix, Biotech Park at the Electronics City. Of the total funding of around Rs 35 crore, the centre will chip in Rs 10 crore, Software Technology Parks of India and government of Karnataka will extend assistance to the tune of Rs 10 crore each. The remaining will come in for Strand Genomics. The Letter of Intent was handed over by the central government to Dr S Yatindra, director, IBAB and Dr Vijay Chandru, managing director, Strand Genomics.
This year more than 650 delegates from across the globe are participating in the six focused tracks and 22 conference sessions. More than 110 Indian and International speakers will be participating in these conference sessions. Over 400 pharma-biotech companies are exploring business opportunities.
The three-day event was inaugurated here today by Union minister of state for science & technology and earth science Prithviraj Chavan.
Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa was present along with the state minister for IT & BT, Information, Excise and BWSSB.
The other dignitaries included Miguel Angel Ramirez Ramos, ambassador, Republic of Cuba, Friedrich Rahn, acting consul general consulate general of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bangalore, Richard Hyde - British deputy high commissioner, Karnataka, Ashok Kumar C Manoli, Karnataka's principal secretary for IT&BT and Science & Technology, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairperson, Karnataka's Vision Group on Biotechnology & CMD Biocon, Aravind Jannu, director, Karnataka Directorate of IT & BT, Govt. of Karnataka & MD - KBITS, and Sudhakara Rao, chief secretary, government of Karnataka
The event was organized by the Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, Vision Group on Biotechnology and MM Activ Sci-Tech Communications Co.
This year, the exhibition at Bangalore Bio has attracted over 110 National and International organizations showcasing their innovation. There are 15 organizations from Germany and exhibitors from UK, Australia and Singapore as well.