The 3-day Bangalore Bio 2008, which facilitated over 500 one-to-one business meetings for potential collaborations, partnerships & alliances, concluded on a positive note. The event attracted over 150 exhibiters, 85 national and international speakers and 700 delegates.

According to the Karnataka government, this year's event attracted the largest international gathering. There were over 100 delegates from 14 countries including USA, Australia, France, UK, Germany, Italy, Holland, Japan, and Malaysia. The event was supported by a global partner Merck & Co. Inc, one of the world's biggest bio-pharma companies.

Victoria State, Australia was the country partner with 16 companies and delegation of 40 professionals. They had conducted over 100 business meetings with the Indian companies during the three days of the event, including the Karnataka Department of IT & BT. Interactions were also held with representatives from states of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The delegation is upbeat and confident to return for the ninth edition of the event to be held next year on April 15-17.

There was a 15-company representation from France with 45 experts from Health Sciences and Biotechnology sector. Over 150 meetings were held with the Indian companies.

In tune with the core theme of Global Partnering, the International Conference featured four successful case studies of cross border partnering with Indian Enterprises addressed by Advinus & DNDi, Merck & Nicholas Piramal, Connexios Life Sciences & Rheoscience and Avesthagen with Groupe Danone.

The event also created a platform to forge Global Partnerships. Programmes like Research Industry Collaboration Hub (RICH), was a platform to present new technologies ready for commercialisation.

This event was sponsored by Avesthagen and Biocon was the platinum sponsor. CEO Conclave was sponsored by Advinus and Canara Bank sponsored the awards nite. State of Victoria, Australia was the country partner and Govt. of Chhattisgarh was the partner State. UK Trade and Investment was the co-host for the conference along with Biozeen and Metahelix hosting AgriBiotech Day. The Diamond sponsors were Alexandria and Novozymes, the gold sponsors were Manipal Acunova and GE Healthcare.