Agilent Technologies is a leading measurement company and a technology leader in life sciences and chemical analysis. Sanjeev Dhar, country manager, Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis (LSCA) group told YV Phani Raj in an exclusive interview, the advancements made by his group in India, critical areas of focus and path ahead. Excerpts:
Can you throw light on Agilent's operations in India? How significant is India as a market?
Agilent in India has 1200 professionals engaged in marketing, sales and customer support, R&D, engineering services and support and transaction processing. It is the first IT-enabled services organisation of the company to support the global operations of the company. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology and world-class infrastructure, there are high-speed network links into Agilent offices worldwide and '24 hours by 7 days' capabilities. The entity has a system-on-a-chip design centre for application specific integrated circuit and system design activities.
It is a 100 per cent Export Oriented Unit allowing Agilent to increase its presence in India and also leverage the high-quality and cost-effective software and transaction processing talent available in the country. Agilent Technologies International is a centre of excellence in many areas of business processing and R&D.
Agilent has a customer support centre in Bangalore. The Test and Measurement customer support centre located in Bangalore holds an ISO 9002 certification and is an NABL accredited Calibration Centre in India.
India is a high growth market. Quality of drugs is becoming on par with those manufactured by global pharmaceutical companies.
What is the core function of Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis group?
The Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis (LSCA) business helps identify, quantify, analyse, and test the chemical and biological properties of substances. As a leading manufacturer of advanced products and instruments in the areas of gas and liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, network data systems, gene expression analysis, bio-informatics and laboratory-on-a-chip technology, Agilent is able to provide comprehensive solutions for nucleic acid analysis, gene expression analysis, genotyping, protein and peptide analysis, drug discovery, drug development, and drug manufacturing.
One of the Agilent Technologies' major fields of focus are life sciences and chemical analysis. Agilent operates the businesses of Test and Measurement, Automated Test and Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis - supported by a central laboratory. Its businesses excel in applying measurement technologies to develop products that sense, analyse, display and communicate data.
What kind of revenues had been achieved by the LSCA group, globally?
Agilent's Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis (LSCA) group is a world leading provider of instrumentation, supplies, software and services to life science and chemical analysis markets. In FY 2005, these markets accounted for approximately 40 per cent and 60 per cent of LSCA's $1.42 billion in revenue, globally.
How is Agilent helping pharmaceuticals industry and what is your mission?
Agilent helps organizations to advance basic research, unlock the genetic causes of diseases and accelerate the discovery and development of new drugs. Agilent addresses the needs of the entire pharmaceutical value chain with solutions for genomics, proteomics, informatics, pharmaceutical drug analysis and regulatory compliance.
Pharmaceutical companies are expected to meet tough timelines. India has competitive edge over other countries for having low cost manufacturing capabilities.