Four companies were winners of the annual Bio-Excellence Award. Novozymes South Asia Pvt Ltd won the prize under the Industrial Biotechnology Category, Syngene International in Biotech Services Category, Serum Institute of India in Pharma Biotechnology Category and Rasi Seeds Pvt. Ltd in Agribiotechnology Category.

The awards were for given away by Vatsala Watsa, additional Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka.

This year, the jury comprised experts from varied backgrounds. Dr. Vijay Ragahavan, Director, NCBS, represented the academia, Abraham Mathew from the Cyber Media Publications, Nitin Deshmukh from Finance and Venture Capital, Shrikumar Suryanarayanan represented the industry and N Suresh from the biotechnology magazine. .

"Karnataka's success in IT & BT was primarily driven by the availability of highly qualified skilled workers and technical resources. This talent has been one of the of critical factors that helped the State to achieve an important status in the biotechnology efforts, stated Vatsala Watsa, Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka who gave away the awards.

The poster session which is an interesting feature of the Bangalore Bio event annually allows the scientists to portray their creativity and innovation. The winners were Anuj Dhariwal from JAIV Technologies Pvt Ltd., Hemant Kumar Verma from Institute of Microbial Technology, Ms. Prasanthi Nanthan from Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, B. U Bawankule from Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Ashutosh K Shukla from Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

Awards were also presented to the exhibitors. The best designed and innovative them was bagged by French Commission, Novozymes and Agilent Technologies. Under the category of most interactive and best managed stall went to Eppendorf, Government of Chhattisgarh and Millipore. For the Bio content and informative stall category, the winners were Metahelix, CSIR and Avesthagen.