Biotech sector to get more govt fund

India's biggest bio-tech show, Bangalore Bio-2005, opened on Friday as the government promised more investment in biotechnology, the US and Britain proposed partnerships with India and experts spoke of the country reaching $5 billion in bio-tech business by 2010.

As the event, touted also as one of Asia's largest BT shows, began, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Anbumani Ramdoss said government would invest more in biotech which had a holistic approach to prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

He told the gathering that included eminent scientists from overseas and India that "everything will revolve round ethics" in the structures that government would evolve to regulate clinical trials but made it clear that there would be no blockade or "inspector raj" and it would be professional.

M K Bhan, secretary, Union Department of Biotechnology, said the government was committed to sustaining the bio-tech sector in a "consistent, progressively scaled manner". The government would lay major emphasis on global partnerships, giving a "hassle-free" environment to global partners.

British High Commissioner to India Sir Michael Arthur, whose country is strongly represented at the fifth edition of the annual show, expressed Britain's keenness to partner with India in biotech, while George Atkinson, Scientific Advisor to the US Secretary of State, said the potential for collaboration with India was "so many" and scientists and researchers of both countries have "many areas of common interest" for collaboration.