TOWARDS COLLABORATION: British High Commissioner to India Sir Michael Arthur (right) and Bio-Industry Association chairman Simon Best at a press conference in Bangalore on Tuesday. — Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

Bangalore: The United Kingdom has increased its presence at "Bangalore Bio 2006," which starts on Wednesday.

"Each year, U.K. firms have been increasing their presence. Compared to just about 12 companies last year, 17 are participating this year. The biotech industrial sector in the U.K. is now worth $8 billion, second only to the U.S.," British High Commissioner to India Sir Michael Arthur told presspersons here on Tuesday.

U.K. was the gateway to Europe for Indian companies seeking to go global in biotech or other sectors, he said. It was home to Europe's largest concentration of science parks with clusters in London, Scotland, Cambridge and Oxford and was a top venture capital market for Indian biotech firms, he said.

U.K. was also home to 5.5 per cent of global research and development work, and its researchers produced 13 per cent of the most quoted scientific papers, Sir Michael said. U.K. was keen on collaborations with the Indian industry and research bodies for biotech-related research. As part of the U.K.-India Education and Research agreement, U.K. would be spending £15 million for collaborative research with Indian institutions such as IITs, he said.

Air services from the U.K. and Europe to Bangalore had grown from just 19 flights a week a few years ago to seventy now. This showed how business travel had increased, Sir Michael said. The number of Indian students in British Universities was poised to increase from the current 17,000 to 25,000 within a few years, he said.

Simon G. Best, chairman of the Bio-Industry Association of the U.K., said the delegation to "Bangalore Bio 2006" included Crispin Kirkman, CEO, Emerging Technologies Network; Nermeen Varawala of PRA International, representatives of speciality chemical company CMS Chemicals; supplier of instruments and consumables for life sciences research and drug discovery Genetrix; mass-spectrometry consultant and analysts M. Scan; manufacturer of high-performing inert plastic components Omnifit; leaders in baculovirus protein and recombinant protein technologies Oxford Expression Technologies; and pharmaceutical industry consultants Technomark. Representatives from the London Stock Exchange would also participate in the show, he added.

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