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MUMBAI: A joint survey report of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Rabo India on financing biotech enterprises has said that biopharmaceuticals, bioinformatics and biotech services would be investors’ main thrust area of investment.
About 60-80 percent of funds indicated their preferences for this cluster. The next preference of the funds is agricultural biotechnology and genomics with 20-40 percent. About 10-20 percent of the investors have preference for medical devices and contract research.
However, the report says, marine biotechnology and environmental biotechnology are not on the investment radar of the funds, as less than 10 percent of the investors have preference for these areas.
The report has pointed out that the abundance of talented, qualified and cost —competitive human resources are the key features of the Indian biotechnology. Besides, internationally reputed information technology capabilities that can be applied in bioinformatics and availability of vast gene pool and large patient base, which can be used for drug development are boosting biotech sector in India, the report added.
CII- Rabo India report noted some growth restricting factors that are hindering the progress and growth and investments opportunities in India. The factors include-- absence of adequate investments/risk capital, lack of quality entrepreneurs with sound business plans and commercial vision, lack of world class infrastructure facilities, inadequate government support and absence of apt regulatory/policy framework and inability of potential investors to assess Intellectual Property driven biotechnology business models.
In addition to the increasing flow of funds from private sector, the report noted that the government’s budgetary allocation to biotechnology has more than trebled from $150 million in 1987-88 to $300in 1997-98 and $500 in the fiscal year 2002-03. To promote private sector efforts in biotech research, the national budget for the fiscal year 2002 has provided for 150 percent tax-deduction for R &D spending on biotechnology.