The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will collaborate with Canada's Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO) to provide greater international visibility to the Indian biotech sector and to promote partnership and investment opportunities. The collaboration will be in the areas like clinical trials, bioinformatics and bioprocessing, according to CII press communiqué.

Carl Feldbaum, President, BIO, and a CII Biotechnology Mission led by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw discussed potential areas of collaboration in Toronto, Canada.

He also invited greater Indian participation at BIO 2003, the annual convention and exhibition of BIO, which attracted 14000 representatives from 44 countries in 2001.

Since the setting up of BIO in 1993, the number of approved biotechnology drug and vaccine products in the United States has grown six-fold to 117 as of December 31, 2000. Annual investments on the other hand have increased from $ 3 billion in 1993 to an estimated $11 billion in 2001 and biotech products on the market in the US went up from 22 in 1993 to 117 in 2000.

BIO has also been instrumental in ensuring that a variety of tax incentives were enacted at the state and federal level to encourage biotech investment in the US.

The 20-member CII biotech team is on business mission to the US and Canada from June 9-18, 2002. The mission is led by Dr Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairperson, CII National Committee on Biotechnology & Chairman & Managing Director, Biocon India Ltd.

The CII mission also met Victor Doerkson, Minister for Science & Technology of the Alberta Province in Canada and discussed collaborations and alliances between Alberta and India. Alberta would also be part of the Canadian mission to India in February 2003.

IBM Life Sciences, according to the CII press communiqué, has also expressed keen interest in establishing a major presence in the Indian market. MDS Sciex, which has a tie-up with the Bangalore-based Kshema Technologies, is another biotech firm keen on expanding its presence in India and will be participating in CII's Biotech India 2003.

The CII mission also held a meeting with Enterprising Pharmaceutical Professionals from the Indian subcontinent (EPPIC) in San Francisco and with some of the world's other leading biotech companies including Incyte Genomics, Affymetrix, AntexBiologics, and research centres like the Stanford Genome Technology Center.