The government of Andhra Pradesh signed MoUs with four US biotech firms for setting up joint ventures in the state's biotech park. The agreements signed between Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (APIDC) venture and companies like Genomics USA, Bioserve USA, Genomic Design Pharmaceuticals and Silico Indights Inc are intended to promote biotechnology on a large scale in the state.

An important agreement was signed with Monsanto Company, USA by which the company is to extend its agro-based biotech programmes to the state. The company is to utilize the facility at ICICI Knowledge Park for its R&D activities, it is learnt.

According to sources, the Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu, who is in the middle of a US tour, visited North Carolina Biotechnology Centre and interacted with the captains of the industry. He visited Research Triangle Park (RTP) and participated in a symposium titled "Biotechnology bridges continents".

The symbosium concluded with the CM signing a letter of intent in the field of biotechnology with James Fain, secretary, Carolina State. In a related development, Chacko P Verghese, managing director of the Biotechnology International, North Carolina and Mohan Hingorani, chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park Private Limited, Hyderabad signed a similar letter of intent. Dr D Balasubramanian, former director of CCMB and chairman of the Biotechnology Advisory Committee of Andhra Pradesh made a presentation at the symposium. He listed out a number of areas in both traditional and modern biotechnology in which India, particularly AP, played a leading role.

It is learnt that the state government signed an agreement with San Francisco based Sun Microsystems for research collaboration on bioinformatics related areas.