Uttaranchal, the emerging pharmaceutical hub in the tax free zones of North India, has initiated a major project to develop the State as a world standard Bio-cluster of life sciences companies and to address the issue of manpower and infrastructure shortage faced by units coming up in the region.

As part of the short-term goals, the government is planning to set up a centralized Research and Development facility and a QC/QA laboratory at Dehradun with an investment of over Rs 2 crore to assist the pharmaceutical and other life sciences companies. SIDUL has sought assistance of the Department of Science & Technology (DST) to set up the facility, and a project report will be submitted soon. The facility will serve the testing and R&D requirements of the 350 odd units coming up in the State, most of them in the SME sector.

About 18 pharmaceutical companies have already come up in Uttaranchal and the State Government has signed 37 MoUs with life sciences companies, worth over Rs.175 crore of investment. More than 350 pharmaceutical and biotech companies have bought land for setting up units in the State, sources informed Pharmabiz.

The units coming up in the region are facing acute shortage of manpower as the seven pharmaceutical undergraduate and postgraduate institutes in the State has only 350 odd seats. Of this, numerous seats are lying vacant. It is estimated that within one or two years, the life science companies in the region will require a minimum 8000 to 10,000 qualified technical manpower.

With a view to address these issues, the Uttaranchal Technical University, the central body in the state managing all technical institutions, has roped in services of the Pune based consultancy Onco Life Sciences to advice on pharma and biotech segment. Onco and the University, in association with various relevant departments of the Government will conceptualise, plan, and develop an elaborate Bio cluster in Uttaranchal, with short and long-term goals.

Ashish Agarwal, CEO, Onco Life Sciences said stress will be to develop primary infrastructure to facilitate business of R&D intensive high technology and science companies and bring them in close proximity with university, colleges, hospitals and other related entities. Efforts will be done to train and improve quality of manpower in colleges, industries and departments and help to develop a pool of technical manpower in the State related to Pharmacy graduates, post graduates from Chemistry, Zoology, Botany, Bio informatics, Management, Engineering, etc.

Uttranchal Government is concerned whether the migrating companies would stay back or not, once the tax holidays are over. Besides, the companies that have set up units in the region are Indian companies. Plans are to set up adequate infrastructure and then attract multinational companies from different parts of the world, promoting Uttranchal as an ideal biocluster in India, he said.