Researchers and scientists in India would have to be innovative if the country wished to unleash its vast intellectual potential, chairman and managing director of Biocon Ltd Kiran Mazumdar Shaw said on Saturday.
The boom in the 'knowledge economy' had made the entire scientific and entrepreneurial community realise the power of wealth creation, she said, adding, "Innovation is the strongest currency in this regard."
She received the second Madras Diabetes Research Foundation award for Innovation in Research and development here. The award comprises a gold medal and a citation.
Shaw said intellectual wealth creation took lesser time than making money through conventional methods. "India has enormous potential to emerge as the intellectual capital and create intellectual wealth if innovation occurs in all fields of enterprise", she said at a two-day India-Swedish symposium on Genomics and Proteomics of Diabetes in Chennai.
In the field of biotechnology, she said it could attain the stature of Information Technology and was now the most hotly pursued subject worldwide.
Shaw said more than 40 per cent of drugs receiving approval from the US Food and Drug Administration were biotech drugs, a figure which was likely to rise to 70 per cent by 2015.
"Biotech is providing a deeper understanding diseases at the cellular, molecular and genomic levels. Newer molecules in the area of Diabetes is providing exciting frontrunner," she said.
"In India what we are witnessing is the convergence of clinical practice and clinical research. We need to amplify these efforts to all spheres of medical research," Shaw said.
Stating that it required about two billion USD to develop a new drug, she noted there was a need to develop drugs at an affordable cost. "India can make the whole process of drug development more affordable", she said.
The symposium was inaugurated by Sweden's Karolinska Institute, Research and Education, Dean, Jan C Duke, the co-organisers of the symposium.
Union Department of Biotechnology advisor Dr T S Rao said the Centre was now concentrating on allotting funds for particular diseases like diabetes for research in these areas, so that the best therapies were developed.
Earlier, Karolinska Institute's Director, Centre for Molecular Medicine, Dr C B Sanjeevi, Prof M R S Rao, President, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, President and Chief of Diabetes Research, MDRF, Dr V Mohan and Vice-President, MDRF Dr M Rema, spoke.