The seventh edition of BioAsia 'BioAsia 2010: The global bio-business forum' will be held at Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad from February 3 - 6, 2010. The four-day event will be inaugurated by Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah and union minister for science and technology Prithviraj Chauhan.
Kanna Lakshminarayana, Andhra Pradesh minister for major industries, Josep Hugueti Biosca, minister for innovation, universities and enterprise, Catalonia, Government of Spain and Prof. M K Bhan, secretary, Department of Biotechnology are the other dignitaries who are expected to participate in the inaugural function.
Over 200 delegates from foreign countries and representatives from more than 100 companies are also expected to participate in this international trade show.
Representatives of Eli Lilly, Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc, European Commission, European Business and Technology Centre, Novo Nordisk, Thomson Reuters, Pfizer, Baxter, Intercell AG, Janessen Pharmaceutica, Russian Biotechnology Society, Eisai Pharmaceuticals, Grant Thorton, Ernst and Young will take part in the event. Most of the biotech and bio-pharma companies located in the Genome Valley on the city outskirts will also be participating in the event.
Due to the tremendous response from the biotech, bio-pharma, agri-biotech industries, major emphasis will be on bio-partnering and trade show during BioAsia 2010. The event will comprise conference, trade show and B2B platform. This edition of BioAsia will have a four- track conference model (medical biotechnology, biopharmaceuticals, agriculture biotechnology and animal biotechnology) instead of the earlier model of two tracks. Over 100 speakers will participate during the course of 30 sessions spread across the four-day event.
“The Indian biotechnology sector valued at USD 2.86 billion is one of the fastest growing knowledge-based sectors and is expected to play a key role in shaping India's rapidly developing economy. With a remarkable growth of 30 per cent over the last few years in the biotech sector, India has started attracting global attention especially in the field of clinical trials, contract research and manufacturing and other services of bio-pharma segment. BioAsia is the platform that is helping to further this growth. ,” said Dr. B S Bajaj, convener of BioAsia 2010.
“The highlights of this year’s edition are Indo- European networking meetings, white papers on PPP in biotechnology and funding options for drug discovery by Grant Thornton and an estimated total foot fall of over 6,000 delegates and visitors,” Dr. Bajaj added. During the event, panel discussions will be held on ‘Public Private Partnership in Life Sciences’, ‘Strategies to make India a Contract Research Organizations hub in Asia’, ‘International Venture Funds perspective of funding life science start-ups in India’, among others.
BioAsia which helped bring in more than Rs. 2,000 crore investments in its last edition from companies like Lonza and Alexandria is looking to attract even more investments this year.