Millipore (India) Pvt. Ltd., which dominates the country's lab water solutions, is poised to cater to the needs of the pharma-biotech R&D market which is preparing itself for the new patent regime that comes into force in 2005. In the process, the company has chalked out a massive awareness programme to stress on the importance of water quality where it would educate the laboratory specialists about the criticality of water contamination through regular seminars, training programmes and exhibitions.

With the quality of water in India being suspect, with contaminants like inorganic, organic, particulates, and microorganisms, pharma-biotech companies lose precious time and money and face costly final product rejections because poor water quality affects test results and the composition of the product too.

With its expertise, Millipore is in an ideal position to cater to the needs of the pharma-biotech R&D market which is preparing itself for stringent patent regime norms that come into force in 2005, Rajeev Nair, general manager, Lab Water Division, Millipore India told Pharmabiz.com

The government of India has allocated a budget of 0.8 per cent of its GDP towards R&D which is around Rs.20,000 crore. This is expected to double to 2 per cent of the GDP over the 10th five year plan.

Millipore is geared up to grab a substantial share of lab water market and plans to penetrate deeper into the pharma-biotech R&D sector which is on a massive infrastructure revamp exercise to equip itself for 2005.

The size of the water purification/treatment market in India is $350 million and is expected to grow by 20-25 per cent over the next three years.
The market value for point-of-use purification systems is $30 million, water and waste water treatment is $200 million and bottled water is $120million.