The 90 percent of the revenue goes out of the country. If that would have remained here, we could have done more research. If you walk down the corridors of government institutes, IITs or a big hospital like Medanta Medicity corridors, all the research related or diagnostic products are made available through imports. We don’ t have capability to make high end instruments but we could have tried to improve. The question is: Are we doing something on that count?
Q: So, what you make out of Make India? Isn’ t this a step towards indigenous manufacturing?
The government is focusing on translational research but funding strains are surely an issue. There is a $ 100 billion industry opportunity but equally enormous are the challenges that stare at us.
The funding has been strained and thus business got shrunk too. The industry has been sluggish on new innovations since last 2 years.
If we reduce quality research in India, our dependability on MNCs will continue and we will remain where we are. While the availability of money has to be more but at the same time, the accountability too needs to be there to ensure good research, better diagnostics, new healthcare avenues.
Q: What were your expectations from the budget 2017?
First of all, there is a big requirement for the change in thought process. The policymakers must understand that 1.25 billion people have lot of requirements out of this sector. If we are not putting our act together now, we will remain lagging behind. Grant of funds and utilization need to be kept at equal importance.
There should be custom duty exemptions for molecular biology reagents and other chemicals required for research. The SEZs where biotech startups are given facilities must be given a boost.
Biotech industry is a capitalintensive industry. The government must increase the funding the way it was done for IT. While IT grew leaps and
Biotech industry is a capital-intensive industry. The government must increase the funding the way it was done for IT. While IT grew leaps and bounds, BT remained low profile.
bounds, BT remained low profile. That should change. Budget of course has a huge role to play.
Q: You said the BT has been held back. Why do you think so?
It again lies in the thought process. The same must percolate down from leaders. We need people who understand the importance of biotech industry in India. We need the programmes that are participatory, joint ventures with Indian companies are important for knowledge sharing.
To give you an example, the people in customs don’ t understand what are peptones, yeast extracts, molecular biology reagents. There is lot of bureaucracy and they can’ t differentiate between normal goods and one for research, consumables or food items. Government needs to look into this as we as an industry pay heavy price and feel discouraged.
Q: Is the lack of an association among biosuppliers, a major factor for not being able to put your point across?
This has been a factor. The industry is divided into two kinds of biosuppliers: Indian distributors and top multinationals. They work in competition with each other, in tandem or together. Unfortunately, the intellectual ability of biosuppliers still remains untapped as an industry.
Q: How has been the BioHouse Solutions doing as a company?
We started six and half years as a bootstrap company with almost nothing to the level of two million dollars now. Our focus has been on top line, distribution with limited margins. Last two years have seen the transformation into more bottom line driven approach. We want to be the exporters too rather than being just distributor. We work as pan India partners for BioRad, Thermofisher Life Sciences( Cytometry). We have created a
BIOVOICENEWS. COM 41