Ocimum Biosolutions, the Hyderabad-based life sciences contract research and development company with operations both in India and the US, has announced the successful installation of its Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) package called Biotracker. It is a multi-platform GLP compliant LIMS for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

The company has its US headquarters in Indianapolis and a branch office at Newport Beach, California. Ocimum is a part of the $50 million Saraca group, the world's largest producer of sulphamethoxazole and one of the top three producers of Ranitide in India.

Biotracker enables the life sciences and pharmaceutical labs to keep an accurate track of samples, reagents, instruments, processes and output from the time these samples and resources are required right through to the final stage of research.

According to Subash Ligareddy, president and CFO of Ocimum, Biotracker helps labs to reduce the cost of operations and have easy and timely access to the right information. It improves productivity and efficiency to meet the increasing demands in the post-genomic, high throughput era. Biotracker comes with configurable reports that help companies find out where an experiment / lab is headed.

The company also offers services in bioinformatics, genomics, proteomics and custom contract research. Ocimum provides key, ready-to-use software solutions for the biotechnology industry - an indigenously developed suite of products such as Genchek, Microtracker, Pathtracker, Nutrabase and Genowiz and an array of services including Data Mining, Algorithm development, Gene identification, Multiple platform software development, Database creation and manipulation and tools for AFLP image analysis.

Lingareddy told Pharmabiz.com that the Ocimum custom contract services included analytical diagnostic services to the pharma and agricultural organizations and CGMP contract manufacturing for biologicals and non-biologicals.

He said the services of the company covered everything from pure biological task to automated computing requirements. A majority of these services were available in whole or part with other providers as well. Quality, cost control and speedy delivery made the company different from others.

Ocimum, in association with the Michigan Technological University, offers a 20-week certificate course in bioinformatics.

Lingareddy projected a turnover of Rs 120 crore for the company in the current financial year. Asked about the prospects of the biotech industry, and contract research industry in particular, he said the government should encourage the investors by removing duties on imported chemicals and equipment. The tax benefits should apply to products manufactured for the Indian market as well. If chemicals and equipment were to cost so much, there was no hope for the growth of the industry. For smaller players, it was very difficult to survive, he said.