In an unexpected development in research and development space in Bangalore, Accelrys, a subsidiary of Pharmacopeia Inc. which had its R&D Centre, Accelrys Software Solutions Private Limited, at the International Tech Park at Whitefield in Bangalore has suddenly closed down this morning. Sixty employees lost the jobs and currently there are only four remaining at the premises.

Despite several attempts to contact the senior officials from Accelrys Software Solutions Private Limited, Bangalore who refrained to comment, it is learnt that the sudden news to exit did create a sense of panic and fury among the staff.

Primary reasons for a sudden closure came about because of not being able to maintain a minimum head count of 120-150 employees which was a benchmark mandated by the parent company in San Diego, USA. Even if the right manpower was available, they did not have the right skills in Bioinformatics, Chem-informatics and Mati-informatics. The Bangalore office was much dependent on the parent company in these areas of business. It was never possible for the Indian operations to be independent. The parent company set base in Bangalore in 2001 primarily because of the information technology skills and scientific research environment that the city was known for. In spite of the availability of IT and scientific skills, candidates were not up to the mark to handle applications of complex scientific nature. This gave the parent company no other option but close down operations in Bangalore at a time when product releases were complete, stated sources.

Although the Bangalore operations did have an head count of 75, only 25 per cent were those honed with scientific expertise and the remaining were pure generalized information technology specialists. This left the parent company very little choice to make Indian operations an self-sufficient, instead they took an instant decision to shut down operations in the city.

Even though the company had 75 personnel and its performance was appreciative between 2003-2005, it faced a 40 per cent attrition in 2006. Employees left for higher salaries.

The development centre was be responsible for software development work for the parent company addressing the needs of major pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and chemical companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis.

Market rumours estimate that Accelrys parent company is likely to suffer around $1 million in costs with the operational shut down to pay up the staff salaries and severances fee.

R&D consultants stated under the present circumstances the pure Information technology personnel would not find it difficult to find jobs. But it would take a while for the scientific personnel with expertise in computer-based predictive models in the drug development process to find the right openings. "The closure of Accelrys in India is a warning to many multinational pharma-biotech research units in the country. Hasty decisions to set base in India without knowing the actual reality that scientific skills are just not right here will see many foreign investors take a cautious step, they averred.

Pharmabiz has reported in early 2006 that since the commissioning of the facility in 2001, the focus areas of operations included software product development in the areas of Bioinformatics, Chem-informatics and Life Science Modelling and Quality Control for all of Accelrys' product lines. The Bangalore facility was one of the three Accelrys' Centres of Excellence. Other centres were in San Diego, CA, and Cambridge, UK. Accelrys India was evolving to become a product development centre of excellence; It had invested several million dollars in the Bangalore R&D Centre of Excellence.