India will have 10 new biotechnology parks in the public-private partnership mode by 2010. The new parks will come up in states of Gujarat, Uttaranchal, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi.

The representatives of these states gathered at Genome Valley in Hyderabad, a biotech cluster, to discuss issues related to development of biotech parks and learn from the experiences of each other on February 9, 2006.

Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune already have biotech parks.

The announcement by M. K. Bhan, secretary in the department of biotechnology, coincided with the launch of BioAsia 2006, a three-day global bio business forum hosted by the Andhra Pradesh government.

Bhan told reporters that a working group would be set up to create biotech parks with focus areas including agriculture, pharma and healthcare.

It was also decided to create bio resources or centralised equipment facilities at the proposed biotech parks to ensure that companies shared the costly equipment that many of them cannot afford to buy.

The official said a joint working group would be set up at the national level to launch training programmes for investigators in clinical research. "India has tremendous potential for clinical research for harnessing drug discovery," Bhan said.

(http://news.webindia123.com)