Union government is working to make National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority (NBRA) bill a reality in mid July. The bill will provide the biotech sector overall growth across all verticals, stated Prithviraj Chavan, minister of State (Independent Charges) for Science & Technology and Earth Science, prime ministers' Office & minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India.

With the impressive growth of the biotech sector, the government is making effort to ensure that the Bill will help to create the NBRA as an independent, autonomous, statutory agency. Its key role will be to regulate the safety of the biotech products and processes. In addition to the formation of the Authority, the bill is expected to also address the data exclusivity, sharing of data on clinical trials and safety testing. It will provide total autonomy for its activities, he added.

The minister of State who was here in Bangalore to inaugurate the three-day Banglaore Bio 2009, said that Indian Biotech sector will be valued at US$25 billion by 2020. Government is promoting three major biotech clusters in the country at Bangalore, Faridabad and Mohali. The centre would provide all support to these biotech clusters.

India was recognized for its vaccine development. Due to indigenous research and production, every third child in the world is vaccinated with Indian vaccines. Shortly Serum Institute, Pune will develop the swine flu vaccine, he said.

Indian pharmaceutical sector is growing at a rate of 65 per cent making it one of the fastest and high growth segments. The biotech drug development was intrinsic to pharmaceuticals. There are 370 biotech companies in the country. The government has recognized biotech as sunrise industry and is encouraging aggressive expansion of manufacturing and research. In order to meet the challenges of the industry, it is looking at technology transfer, fund allocation and regulatory issues to take the sector to the next level of growth.

The government through the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Science and Technology is also looking at international cooperation programme to tap the mutually beneficial opportunities in the biotech sector.