Frost & Sullivan's annual edition of Global Partnership Summit on the Opportunities in Life Science Molecules will be held at Park Hyatt Resort Spa, Goa, during 21 to 23rd of May. This is an executive summit designed to assist participants become global players in the growing Life science industry through knowledge and business facilitation

Organized at a scenic location such as Goa (India), this summit will provide just the right ambience for a focused interaction on strategic issues concerning the way the global life science companies do business with Indian companies and vice versa.

While last year saw the participation of 15 international companies and more than double the number of Indian firms, the confirmations this year include delegates from the top 50 innovator pharma majors, biotech companies and large fine chemical companies, from the US, Europe, Japan and Latin America. They would be interacting with corporate and research heads from the large Indian life science industry. With such an august gathering of decision makers who have the potential to change the way the life science industry does business, this summit proves to be an ideal platform for knowledge sharing with ample opportunity for business networking with Indian companies.

A large number of medium to big sized pharmaceutical and biotech companies across the world, (predominantly in the west) have followed the outsourcing path to avoid any major capital investments. "Indian companies today have grown from mere suppliers of generic intermediates and APIs to those following a collaborative business approach involving API manufacturing, contract manufacturing for already existing drugs, clinical outsourcing and research partnerships. With many companies having FDA approved sites, and many others following GMP processes, Indian firms are able to deliver products on time, adhering to global quality standards", says Mamta Wadhwa, director, Chemicals, Materials and Foods at Frost & Sullivan (India).

The Contract Research and Manufacturing Services (CRAMS) segment is a fast growing one in the context of the Indian life science industry. With over $20 billion expected to be spent every year on R&D of drugs globally, and 30% of total R&D activities being outsourced, the potential for Indian companies to tap into this looks very promising given the world standards followed in many of their manufacturing plants. Indian firms, with their strong technical capabilities, are in a position to get into research and manufacturing agreements with innovator pharma and biotech companies. "The Global Partnership Summit being organized at Goa by Frost & Sullivan underlines this very fact and gives life science companies in India a great opportunity to listen to strategic issues being addressed by global industry stalwarts, and improve the way they do business with the rest of the world. More importantly, this summit provides an ideal platform to interact with peers from all over the world and talk business at leisure", says Wadhwa.

The entire agenda for the 2 day summit has been framed after thorough interaction with industry participants. Presentations cover key and strategic issues, and are not limited to the following:

. Contract Research & Manufacturing Services: Opportunities from a Partner/Customer Perspective
. An industry imperative on Drug Discovery Outsourcing and how to expand capacity
. Scope for greater synergies and alliances in bio-specialties
. Current IP Scenario in India and how to secure value by finding innovation in unlikely places
. Challenges in Outsourcing to India and China, with a detailed comparative analysis
. Growing cross-border partnerships with the Japanese and Latin American life science companies
. Key success stories in outsourcing, from a global pharma company's perspective
Besides presentations and keynote speeches by industry stalwarts, the summit also includes interactive modules such as:
. Two focused panel discussions; One titled "Acquisitions versus Licensing versus Alliances - What works best under different scenarios?" and the other being "IP, Reliability, Reproducibility, Control or lack thereof? - Are these continuing areas of concerns for Alliances with India"- panel members include thought leaders from Indian and International pharma companies with years of experience.
. An interactive case study cum growth workshop in biologics and bio-specialties, aimed at knowledge exchange, decision making, building successful alliances, etc

With the support of three national and six international media partners, this high profile summit being held at Goa (India), provides participating delegates a great opportunity to listen to current issues being addressed by global leaders, a chance to personally interact with key decision makers from the Indian and international life science community, opportunity to understand key strategies that will help improve the way companies do business with India, an above all an ideal platform to talk shop and strike business deals.