Agilent Technologies has now made an aggressive entry in the Life Sciences market in India with the launch of micro arrays the key tools for drug discovery, medical research and agri biotech. Micro arrays come under the business arm of Life Science and Chemical Analysis (LSCA). The introduction of micro-arrays into India is a part of its global life sciences research initiatives.

The company, which entered the micro array space six years ago, is gearing up to capture a substantial share of the Indian micro array space which is estimated to grow at 70 per cent in 2005 based on a study by Genotypic, a global life sciences ad Bioinformatics company.

Going by the new potential areas like the government-funded life science research programmes and the patent protection which would spur the investments in the biotech and pharma sector, Agilent hopes to capitalise theses opportunities through its integrated biology solutions unit-LSCA, Sanjeev Dhar, country manager, Agilent Technologies said at a press conclave.

The DNA micro-array-based Genomics to improve the productivity of the gene expression and Genomics research. The DNA micro-array also referred to as 'biochip' can measure genome-wide differences between the diseased cells. The technology is expected to give a boost to cancer and antibody research, said Dr. John Jaskowiak, director, Integrated Biology Solutions, Agilent Technologies Inc.

The Indian operations is now the fourth largest Life Science Chemical Analysis (LSCA) business and one of the fastest growing. It has a full-fledged research outlet and a marketing arm at New Delhi and a sales office at Bangalore with a total work force of 1,000 out of total 28,000 employees of the company across the globe. There are no plans to romp up its workforce in the sub-continent, informed Dhar.

The $7.2-billion company has four distinct business groups: test and measurement, semi conductor products, automated test and LSCA. It has registered a growth rate of 12 per cent with customers in 11 countries. The growth drivers for the company are generic pharmaceuticals, Genomics and Proteomics. The Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe are the major revenue generators for the company. While Chemical Analysis contributes 60 per cent of the business, the Life Sciences' share is 40 per cent.