India's most respected Biotechnology awards—The BioSpectrum Person of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award, Entrepreneur of the year and Biotech Product of the Year were announced by BioSpectrum magazine for the 5 th year. This was announced by CyberMedia's specialty magazine for the Biotechnology sector, BioSpectrum Editor N. Suresh.

Product of the year title for Biocon's BIOMAb EGFR 
Bangalore-based Biocon's BIOMAb EGFR, a therapeutic monoclonal antibody-based drug for treating solid tumours of epithelial origin, such as head and neck cancers was chosen as the winner. 

The drug is the first of its kind to be clinically developed in India and is the first anti-EGFR humanized monoclonal antibody for cancer to be made available anywhere in the world. The product was chosen as the Product of The Year based on consistent response in clinical trials initiated both in India and globally. 

Gujarat is the Biotech State of the year 
Based on the progress made by Gujarat state in the field of Biotechnology, especially by way of proactively promoting biotechnology in the state and attracting investments, the high-powered jury awarded the State of the Year award to Gujarat.

Mr. Varaprasad Reddy, managing director of Shantha Biotechnics and a Padma Bhushan winner was chosen as the BioSpectrum Person of the Year 2007 for pioneering a biotech wave and making a societal impact by launching life saving vaccines and therapeutics at affordable cost. 

Shantha Biotechnics is credited with producing India 's first genetically engineered product Shanvac-B, a vaccine against dreaded infection Hepatitis B. Mr. Reddy's firm produced the vaccine in just four years and offered it at one-tenth the price of an imported product thus making it available to millions of Indians. He also initiated a mass immunization drive. 

An academic turned entrepreneur and a co-founder of Strand Life Sciences, Dr. Vijay Chandru, Chairman of Strand Life Sciences was chosen as the Entrepreneur of the year 2007. The co-inventor of the novel hand held computer, Simputer, Dr. Chandru also co-founded the Association of Biotech-Led Enterprises (ABLE) and serves on the executive council. 

Dr. Pushpa Mittra Bhargava, former director of Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) was chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award for his bold contribution to the development of life sciences. Thanks to Dr. Bhargava's untiring efforts, CCMB is today as one of the most well known biotech research centres globally. Dr. Bhargava is known as an institution builder with a sense of responsibility and a sense of purpose. A recipient of over a 100 national and international awards, including a Padma Bhushan, Dr. Bhargava has spent over four decade in Biotech development in India.

The selection for these awards was made by an independent jury headed by Mr. M. Ramaswami, Managing Director, Rasi Seeds, by virtue of his being the BioSpectrum Person of the Year in 2006. Dr. Viloo Morawalla-Patell, CEO and Founder, Avesthagenand the BioSpectrum Entrepreneur of the year 2006; Dr. M. Radhakrishnan Pillai, Director, Rajiv Gandhi Centre of Biotechnology, Trivandrum; Dr. Satish D. Ravetkar, Senior Director, Serum Institute, Pune and Dr. KK Narayanan were some of the other members of the jury. 

The awards will be handed over to the winners on December 21 at Bangalore . 

Some of the earlier winners of the BioSpectrum Person of the Year include Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Dr. Cyrus Poonawalla. Dr. M. S. Swaminathan and Dr. R.A. Mashelkar were among the earlier winners of the Lifetime Achievement Award winners since the awards were instituted 5 years ago. 

India's Biotech exports grew 47% in 2006-07 to Rs. 4,937 crore (US$1.2 Billion) while the biotech industry notched Rs. 8541 crore in revenue. The Top 3 Biotech company slots are occupied by three firms of Indian origin--Pune-based Serum Institute (Rs 951 crore), Bangalore-headquartered Biocon (Rs 823 crore) and New Delhi-based Panacea Biotec (Rs 600 crore). 

About CyberMedia
CyberMedia, now in its 25th year, is South Asia's first and largest specialty media house, with fifteen publications (including Dataquest, DQ Channels and DQ Week, PCQuest, Voice&Data, Global Services and DARE) in the infotech, telecom, consumer electronics, biotech and entrepreneurship 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. 

CyberMedia is also the first media house to have ventured outside the country to a global audience -- publishing two magazines, BioSpectrum Asia from Singapore and Global Services from the USA , the first Indian magazine titles to be published from outside the country for a global audience. 

For media inquiries, please contact: :
At Strategic Communications and PR 
Sanjiv Kataria
+ 91 98100 48095
Sanjiv.kataria@gmail.com 

At CyberMedia: 
Ch. Srinivas Rao, 
Executive Editor, BioSpectrum 
+ 91 98455 80279 
srinivasch@cybermedia.co.in