France has placed top priority for creation of bio-clusters capable of measuring up on the international level and bringing together all participants from research to bio-manufacturing, and invited the Indian pharma majors to make use of it.

Being the fourth largest pharma market in the world, France is keen to attract investment from emerging pharma powers like India, according to a spokesman of the Invest in France Agency (IFA), which promotes and facilitates international investment.

``France's expertise in the pharmaceutical sector is attracting worldwide attention with major potential investments flowing in from UK, USA, Switzerland and emerging markets like India and China,'' said IFA investment and trade officer Andrey Lucbernet.

There are over 300 pharmaceutical companies located in France which represent a sales' revenue of 38.1 billion EUR (40 per cent from exports). Aventis, Sanofi, Servier Laboratories and Pierre Fabre Laboratories are among the top French pharmaceutical companies. France is the 4th largest market in the world, the 2nd in Europe and the 5th exporter of healthcare products worldwide. It creates qualified workforce and employs over 100 000 persons including 19 000 in R&D. Around 3.5 billion EUR are invested annually on research for new pharmaceutical needs, he said.

"Nowadays, the pharmaceutical companies in France are working directly with the public authorities in order to strengthen a favourable environment for the establishment and development of new companies, from research to multifaceted partnership,'' he added.

In 2007, Invest in France Agency helped major investors to set up or extend their business activities in France such as Merck, Lilly and Cephalon laboratories from the US, the Swiss manufacturer for homeopathic drugs Weleda and the Swiss Firmenich (R&D). India is not lagging behind with Wockhardt which took over Negma Laboratories for an amount of 195 millions EUR.