Advanta buys Crosbyton Seed

Hyderabad-based seed company Advanta India on Thursday announced the acquisition of Crosbyton Seeds for $13 million (Rs 59.8 crore) through its US subsidiary.

Texas-based Crosbyton is involved in breeding, conditioning and producing of hybrid sorghum seed.

The acquisition would help the company to enhance its market share in the sorghum segment from 22 per cent to 25 per cent globally. In the US, the share would increase to 30 per cent from the present 18 per cent, said its chief executive officer Ram Kaundinya.

Advanta, which is a part of United Phosphorous group, two years ago acquired seed company Garrison and Townsend (GT), also Texas-based, to expand its sorghum business. “The technology alliances of Crosbyton, GT and Advanta will held improve research, sales and production of sorghum,” Kaundinya said speaking to the media on the sidelines of BioAsia 2010.

Translational researchinstitute
Renaissance, a clinical trials and translational science institute with operations in Hyderabad, together with its partners would set up a translational institute at Shameerpet in Hyderabad.

The institute would be for cancer studies. It would have a 400-bed hospital in the premises to support the studies, according to Olivier Blin, managing director and chief scientific officer of Renaissance.

Renaissance has been allotted 25 acre land at Genome Valley. It would set up Biogenesis, a cluster in which companies from Europe would have their operations or offer services, he said.

“The project would start next year and complete in about four years. We are in talks with banks and big pharma companies to raise the funds required for the project,” he said, adding the project would need over Rs 500 crore in phases.

On the recruitment of scientists and other technical personnel, he said there was no immediate need for recruitment as it had tied up with academia and industry like the University of Hyderabad, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and others for sharing the manpower resources.

Stem cell registry
All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) professor N K Mehra said efforts were on to revive the public stem cell registry in India.

The registry would store from low resolution DNA typings (samples) for reference. The aim was to touch 50,000 donor base in five years. The registry was formed in 1994 and has 3,000 registered donors of which 1,200 are functional.

There are also plans to set up regional centres at Vellore, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Mumbai and Ahmedabad would be set up.

“The stem cell donors would not have any complications and that’s the message we want to spread,” he said adding AIIMS would approach private equity players and international funding agencies to raise about Rs 50 crore for capital requirements.