Biotech industry is found wanting in quality and skill. This was the conclusion of a panel discussion at a conclave organised by Ernst & Young as part of BioAsia ‘06. The event saw active participation from Kewal Handa of Pfizer, Habil Khorakiwala of Wockhardt, Andrew Mascarenhas of OneWorldHealth, Krishna Ella of Bharath Biotech, Sanjiv Kaul of ChrysCapital and Sanjay Reddy of GVK Biosciences, among others.

While there was some debate on the non-involvement of big players in research on tropical diseases, most panelists agreed there wasn’t money in such research. Research and development was the call of the day for, and if companies were to push their R&D spending up to the globally accepted norm of 37% of revenues, Indian companies had to remain focused on serving western needs.

There was a need to move away from biogenerics as the future lay in innovation, said the panel. Innovation would mostly come from small companies who would be willing to risk research rather than big companies. In this context, India’s future looked promising as in the years to come, most global companies would become virtual, with small research establishments form across their world doing the research and development work.

On the issue of venture capital in biotech, the panel maintained the industry was essentially a high-risk one, deterring venture capitalists from investing freely in the sector. Moreover, proposals that are placed in front of venture capitalists lack the robustness that would entice investment. Entrepreneurs have to think their projects out well and develop strong proposals, the panel concluded.

(http://economictimes.indiatimes.com)