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Indian biotechnology—rapidly evolving and industry led

Nature Biotechnology volume 22, pages DC31–DC36 (2004)Cite this article

After India became an independent nation in 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's socialist vision to improve the quality of life for the masses identified a central role for science and technology. He once said, “The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.” Fueled with nationalistic aspirations for self-reliance and pressured to cope with poverty and underdevelopment, the Indian government focused on policies in education and infrastructure to establish a strong science and technology capacity. This strong science base has enabled its successes in biotechnology, agriculture, information technology and pharmaceuticals. Given its limited resources for R&D in the past, the government encouraged process, rather than novel product innovations. This resulted in a strong pharmaceutical industry with capacities in bulk and generic manufacturing, low-cost process innovations and some novel drugs. Many of these pharmaceutical firms, such as Ranbaxy Laboratories (New Delhi), Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (Hyderabad) and Wockhardt (Mumbai), are now drawing from their existing capacities and venturing into biopharmaceuticals and biogenerics. According to a report from Ernst & Young1, India now has the twelfth most successful biotechnology sector in the world as measured by number of companies1. If the current rapid pace of progress of its health biotechnology industry is any indicator, India has a promising future at the national and international level.

The success of India's health biotechnology sector

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Figure 1: Indian publications and USPTO patents in health biotechnology (1991–2002).

Illustration by R. Henretta

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Acknowledgements

Publication of this supplement was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Seattle, WA), Genome Canada (Ottawa, Canada), McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine (Toronto, Canada) and the Rockefeller Foundation (New York, NY). Special thanks to Archana Bhatt, Zoe Costa-von Aesch and James Renihan for patent analysis, Éric Archambault, Frédéric Bertrand and Grégoire Côté at Science-Metrix (Montréal, Canada) for analysis of publication data and to N. K. Ganguly for providing facilities to carry out the work for this project, Vasantha Muthuswamy and Fabio Salamanca-Buentello for guidance and the 38 Indian experts for their valuable time and input. The Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health is primarily supported by Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute and by the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund. Funding partners are listed at http://www.geneticsethics.net. A.S.D. is supported by the McLaughlin Center for Molecular Medicine, University of Toronto. P.A.S. is supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Distinguished Investigator award.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Assistant Director General, Division of Basic Medical Sciences, Indian Council of Medical Research, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi, 110 029, India

    Nandini K Kumar

  2. Research Assistant, Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health, University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, 88 College Street, Toronto, M5G 1L4, Ontario, Canada

    Uyen Quach

  3. Assistant Professor, Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health, University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics and Dept. of Public Health Sciences, 88 College Street, Toronto, M5G 1L4, Ontario, Canada

    Halla Thorsteinsdóttir

  4. Research Officer at the Division of Basic Medical Sciences, Indian Council of Medical Research, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi, 110 029, India

    Hemlatha Somsekhar

  5. McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine,

    Abdallah S Daar

  6. Public Health Sciences and of Surgery, University of Toronto,

    Abdallah S Daar

  7. Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health, University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, 88 College Street, Toronto, M5G 1L4, Ontario, Canada

    Abdallah S Daar

  8. University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics,

    Peter A Singer

  9. University of Toronto,

    Peter A Singer

  10. Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health, 88 College Street, Toronto, M5G 1L4, Ontario, Canada

    Peter A Singer

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  1. Nandini K Kumar
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Correspondence to Halla Thorsteinsdóttir.

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Kumar, N., Quach, U., Thorsteinsdóttir, H. et al. Indian biotechnology—rapidly evolving and industry led. Nat Biotechnol 22 (Suppl 12), DC31–DC36 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1204supp-DC31

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