Bioe News

Published online: 07 August 2003, doi:10.1038/bioent761

Two new biotechnology research parks created in India

*Paroma Basu is a freelance writer located in New York, New York, USA

The state of Maharashtra hopes to outshine other Indian biotech hubs.

The western Indian state of Maharashtra announced the creation of two biotechnology research parks in June, expressing hopes of becoming a major force in the country's biopharmaceutical and agbiotechnology industries. However, industry observers have mixed feelings on whether the new initiatives will help Maharashtra outperform other biotech clusters in India.

A new 6-lane expressway between Mumbai and Pune will facilitate the sharing of knowledge in the state of Maharashtra. Amit Kulkarni

The new 110-acre International Biotech Park (IBP; Hinjewadi, India) is a $50 million joint venture between the consulting firm Chatterjee Group (Edison, NJ, USA) and the state-run Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (Mumbai, India). The IBP hopes to lure 25 to 30 biopharmaceutical companies with its facilities for clinical research, drug discovery, clinical trials and commercial manufacturing. Two companies—Shreya Biotechnology, which will manufacture recombinant protein-based products, and Indo-Canadian erythropoietin production venture Emcure Dragon Pharmaceuticals—have already moved in.

The developers of IBP say that companies could benefit from the proximity of other companies within the park, the pool of skilled scientists in the region and easy access to Mumbai, India's financial capital. Both Mumbai and Pune (a nearby city known for its strong educational and research focus) have internationally connected hospital networks—useful for running clinical trials—and multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Glaxo SmithKline (Mumbai, India) and Roche (Mumbai, India). IBP also adjoins an existing information technology park. This will increase IBP's chances of attracting investment, particularly in the growing area of bioinformatics, predicts Ashok Kosalker one of the authors of Maharashtra's biotech policy.

But Maharashtra will need to compete with other, more developed, biotech clusters in India to be successful. The cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad in the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, respectively, are widely recognized as the core of Indian biotech activity, especially in the areas of genomics and bioinformatics. The two cities are "biotechnology icons" having attracted foreign investment through "well-architected visibility," says Guljit Chaudhri, Delhi-based regional coordinator for the Association of Biotechnology-led Enterprises and executive vice president of the Sanmar Group (New Delhi, India).

Chaudri says that Maharashtra could take the lead in medical biotechnology because it has one of the highest levels of investment in the pharmaceutical industry. But Vivek Singhal, the president of the All India Biotech Association (New Delhi, India), says it is impossible to say which states will lead in the different aspects of biotechnology because many Indian states are jumping into the sector.

Maharashtra's biotech sector could soon gain critical size thanks to the planned creation of a second, agbiotech-focused, 100-acre biotechnology park in Jalna, close to the city of Aurangabad, known as India's 'seed capital'. The park is located in an agricultural area, near companies like Monsanto (Jalna, India) and Syngenta (Jalna, India). "This is the first state in India that has two separate parks, one focused on pharma and another focused on agriculture," says Chaudhri.

In the backdrop of Maharashtra's efforts lies the national government's growing support of biotechnology. One provision in February's Fiscal Indian Budget exempts biotechnology companies from customs duties as well as taxes incurred while registering products overseas, which could reach $400,000 per annum for each company. The government last year also announced the Indian Pharmaceutical Policy calling for a boost in Indian medical biotechnology by reducing price controls on drugs and opening markets to foreign investment; 28 drugs are currently price-controlled compared to 74 drugs under past policies.

In the current economic climate, investors are readily attracted to India because the country "is a hotbed for high profit margins and increasing profitability," says James Harris, vice president for sales and marketing for Dragon Pharmaceuticals (Vancouver, BC, Canada). Harris predicts an increase of foreign investment into Maharashtra if the two parks generate internationally competitive products and boost India's emerging biotech industry.