A 19-member team representing India for an International Biotechnology Convention and Conference, Bio 2002, to be held at Toronto, Canada, from June 9-12, 2002 leaving the country second week of June. The meet is expected to have 14,000 registrants from 46 countries. It will feature six plenary events and more than 150 sessions and symposia with 800 speakers covering 18 programme tracks including business development, clinical regulations, intellectual property and therapeutic devices.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has organised an Indian mission team on biotechnology to be present at the event. After the Toronto event, the team will be in San Francisco on June 13-14, 2002 to visit Genencor, Affymax, Affymetrix, Genetech and Incyte .This will follow a meeting with TiE-EPPIC after which they will proceed to participate in the USIBC annual meeting which will be followed by visits to National Institute of Health, and biotech companies located in Rockville like Entremed, Humfan Genome Sciences, and 20/20 Gene Systems.

There is an impressive number of delegates representing from Karnataka and the mission team is headed by Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and MD, Biocon India Group and the head of the Vision Group on biotechnology in Karnataka.

The key objective of the Mission team is to participate in an international biotech event, get a feel of the knowledge base, kind of research efforts, apart from a first hand exposure to some of the leading biotechnology companies world wide and look up for bio partnering ventures, seek investments for biotechnology sector in India, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw told pharmabiz.com

Karnataka is the only state in the country which has two representatives from the government - Vivek Kulkarni, secretary Information Technology and Biotechnology and Dr.E V Ramana Reddy, director, department of IT and BT, government of Karnataka which only goes to show the state's commitment to progress in biotechnology. Sushil Khanna is the lone representative from the department of biotechnology, government of India.

Karnataka will showcase its biotechnology capabilities through a brochure, which will essentially profile Karnataka biotech industry initiatives and strengths, added Shaw.

From Karnataka there are totally 9 members and they include Kiran Mazumdar- Shaw from Biocon India Group, a company engaged in manufacture of enzymes & biopharmaceuticals, Dr. Vijay Chandru, chairman & chief scientific officer, Strand Genomics, a Bioinformatics company, Cherian Philip, managing director, Sartorius India Pvt. Ltd., a manufacturer of industrial scale fermenters and separation systems, Dr. Villoo Morawala- Patel, founder & CEO, Avestha Gengraine Technologies, a Bioinformatics and plant genomics unit to carry out contract research world wide, Dr. A Sivakumar, assistant general manager, (biotechnology), Sami Labs which specialises in plant derived pharmaceuticals along with the two representatives from the department of IT and BT, government of Karnataka and two members from the CII.

The other delegates are Varaprasad Reddy, managing director, Shantha Biotechnics, Hyderabad, the first company to introduce an indigenously developed r-DNA Hepatitis vaccine in India, Dr. Rashmi Barbhaiya, vice president, Ranbaxy Laboratories, New Delhi which is one of the top pharma companies in the world known for its anti infectives proprietary products and drug delivery systems, new entrant in Biologicals and rated as the 11th largest company in the international generics space in 1999. Hari Bhartia, co-chairman and managing director, Jubilant Organosys is a leading manufacturer servicing customers in pharma and biotechnology part from agrochemicals and construction, Guljit Chaudhri, senior vice president, strategic business & planning from the same company, Rajiv Kamani, customer relationship manager Quintiles Spectral India, a subsidiary of Quintiles Transnational Corp., which offers clinical trails. Dr. Lalit Mahajan, managing director, J Mitra and Company engaged in the medical diagnostics manufacture, Jatin Mahajan, from the same company. Ms. Lakshmi Venkatesan, CEO Opportunia India, a venture funding and incubation consulting company, Sushil Suri /Ms. Rita Duggal from Morepen Laboratories, a preferred generic manufacturer in the international pharmaceutical segment.

There will also be representatives from Infosys Technologies an IT giant now working for the global life sciences sector and Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, engaged in molecular target identification for crop specific research, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.