Experts and investors at the Bangalore India Bio-2010 on Wednesday made a strong plea for a strong interface between the academia and industry to enable the country to grab huge opportunities in Biotechnology research, especially in clinical trials.

Dr Moni Abraham Kuriakose from Narayana Hrudayalaya, participating in a panel discussion on the issue, said, “India has highly trained work force, world-class health facilities, 221 medical colleges and a huge cost advantage in clinical trials. But still, the potential has not been fully utilised.”

India has 50% to 75% cost advantage in clinical trials and “we have a great opportunity to bag a huge share of the $26 billion clinical trials market in the world. India has just about 500 to 1,000 clinical investigators and it is too small, when compared with countries like the USA which has 50,000 of them. India is training about 1,000 clinical investigators each year and it should be ramped up to at least 10,000,” he said.

Dr Kuriakose wanted the government and private sector to initiate measures to develop research culture in medical colleges and hospitals, and encourage research as a career.

Dr Ravi Kumar Banda, managing director of Xcyton Diagnostics Ltd, said “There are large gaps between the industry, academia and investor that need to be bridged. Institutes and research facilities should develop technology platforms or proof of concept for a product to showcase to the industry. Most collaborations fail because of the way the academia approach the industry. Some of the academic institutions like the Indian Institute of Science have good infrastructure. But not even 20% of its potential is being used for research and development.”

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