Karnataka government’s major biotechnology initiative Bangalore Bio 2004 has been postponed to May 2004, following the general elections. The mega event will be held in Bangalore from May 16-18 2004 instead of the customary date April 15-17. The theme of the event is ‘Biotechnology for the Billion People.’
The event, which includes a conference and an exhibition, will have 25 countries including UK, USA, Japan, Singapore, China, France, Malaysia, Russia, Canada and Denmark participating this year. The total space for the exhibition is likely to go up to 4,500 sq. m with more than 125 participants. There will be five pavilions including knowledge, education, states, BT investment and biotech related fields like process engineering and equipment
The conference will cover key topics like research process outsourcing advanced vaccine for infectious diseases, nutrigenomics, nutraceuticals, agri biotechnology, bio therapeutics bio manufacturing bio ethics, IP and data exclusivity, molecular medicines, clinical genomics, diagnostics and IT enabled bio services. A CEO conclave and the Bio-Business awards would also be a part of the event.
For the first time there would be bio-web cast for global reach. There will also be a bio-forum on the net for continuous post event interactions and online registration for space booking.
According to Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson Vision Group on biotechnology in Karnataka, several states were taking major initiatives in biotechnology, which would give a fillip to the sector.
Delving on the theme of this year’s event DB Inamdar, minister for information technology and biotechnology, government of Karnataka said that biotechnology is expected to improve the quality and decrease costs of healthcare and therefore it would impact the billion Indian population.
Efforts are on by the state government to sustain Bangalore’s image as the richest bio cluster in India and maintain its status as a preferred biotechnology destination. In this connection, the government will facilitate the creation of a Rs.50 crore Karnataka Biotech Fund on similar lines of the KITVEN fund for information technology, stated the IT & BT minister. However, the organizers were a bit perplexed when asked about the status of last year’s biotech seed fund, which was announced but did not come through.
Inamdar informed that the Biotechnology Park titled Bangalore Helix will commence construction during mid May 2004 and would be ready in the next 18 months.