A growth momentum of a healthy 30 per cent plus annual growth recorded in the last 3 years is expected to take the nascent biotech industry in India beyond the US$ 5 billion mark by 2010. And by 2015 the industry and policy makers hope to touch the US$ 25 billion mark. However, a cross section of biotech industry fears that an acute shortage of manpower may act as a spoilsport.

An industry survey in the recent issue of BioSpectrum, a CyberMedia group publication, points to a looming shortage of trained manpower despite the fact that over 200 colleges in India produce about 8000 fresh Biotech graduates and post graduates annually. The current pool of scientific manpower engaged in the biotech industry, estimated by BioSpectrum magazine to be 15,000 is expected to grow four fold to touch 60,000 by 2010.

Mr. Pradeep Gupta, head of CyberMedia says, "The BioSpectrum study points to a huge gap between the industry's expectations and availability of quality manpower."

Dr. M. K. Bhan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology echoes similar views when he says, "We failed in creating the human resources. We are way down in numbers. I see that as the biggest challenge. We can build many centers but there must be institutional leadership.

"The biotech institutes need a new kind of drive and excitement. The old system and structure is not sufficient. Though India's science budget is growing at 30 per cent annually, it can grow much faster if there is a demand by the new structure," adds
Dr. Bhan while urging the scientific community to reach out for more.

The respondents that BioSpectrum magazine spoke to were unanimous that there is an absolute shortage of qualified workforce and that Indian University education is still not at the cutting edge. A recent survey on India's Top 20 schools showed that 60 per cent of the students from the Top Public institutions prefer to go abroad and study further rather than take up a job. This trend is a clear pointer that the brighter students are not joining the industry. The survey also points to a gap between the academia's assessments of their students as against the industry's requirements.

Dr M Vidyasagar, Executive Vice President, Tata Consultancy Services says, "There is a serious shortage of well trained persons in the bioinformatics sector. We need to invest in people's potential."

Reactions from the Bioservices sector are no different. Dr. Anupama Ramkumar, Director, Arkus Clinical Trial Support Solutions says, "Unless the government and the industry make a concerted effort to address this issue, this supply-demand gap is going to remain as is." Dr. Ramkumar also bemoans the fact that these training institutions do not have a uniform standard or curriculum leading to inconsistent output.

CyberMedia's BioSpectrum recently released its 3rd Top Bio Tech colleges listing of India. The top 5 ranks in India's Top Public BT schools, 2006 listing have gone to Rajiv Gandhi Centre of Biotechnology, Trivandrum; School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad; National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal; Institute of Chemical Technology, University of Mumbai and Department of Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology, IIT, Delhi.

The Top 5 ranks in India's Private Biotech institutes were occupied by Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, NOIDA; Amity University, NOIDA; The Oxford College of Science, Bangalore; Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra and Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Solan.

About CyberMedia
CyberMedia is South Asia's first and largest specialty media house, with thirteen publications (including BioSpectrum, Dataquest, PCQuest, Voice&Data and Global Services) in the infotech, telecom, consumer electronics and biotech areas, and is a media value chain including Internet (www.ciol.com), events and television. The group's media services include market research (IDC India), job board (CyberMedia Dice), content management, multimedia, and media education.

For more details and copy of the listing, please contact:

At Strategic Communications and PR
Sanjiv Kataria
+ 91 98100 48095
sanjiv.kataria@gmail.com

At CyberMedia:
Shivik Gupta
CyberMedia,
Cyber House, B-35, Sec 32,
Gurgaon 122001 India
Ph: +91 124 4031234
shivikg@cybermedia.co.in
or
www.cybermedia.co.in
or
www.biospectrum.com