CROs for agri biotech on cards

The Federation of Asian Biotech Associations (FABA) is planning to set up contract research organisations (CROs) for agri-biotech on the lines of pharma industry. Towards this, the federation is working on creating a products and services platform for these companies to enable them to share resources and speed up product development.

Speaking to Business Standard, FABA secretary general BS Bajaj said this would allow for consolidation of agri-biotech research by public and private companies.

Common facility centres will be set up for use by member organisations. The CROs will outsource critical aspects of product development like testing and assaying to a third party. Besides, the findings will be available for other companies too to avoid duplication.

The federation will use the ensuing BioAsia 2009, an annual meet of biotechnology industry players being held in Hyderabad from February 2, as a platform for gathering industry support and participation in the initiative.

The scope for agri CROs in India, which is classified as a megabiotech crop country, is vast, said Kiran K Sharma, agri-business incubator head, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat).

According to him, the proposed CROs will connect the research happening at the university level with the real world by helping it commercialise the products. “We intend to evolve a hub and spoke model of CROs in the days to come,” he said, adding that a few products being researched or developed at the university level will be identified and then taken through the value chain, including protecting the intellectual property rights, validation, biosafety tests, communications and facilitating partnerships with others.

The CROs will aim to reach at least 30 per cent of the small and medium agri companies, which do not have the full bouquet of infrastructure facilities or manpower. “In the long run, these will be self supporting structures,” Sharma said.

At present, Icrisat is the only organisation that has been sanctioned an agri-biotech CRO by the department of biotechnology (DBT). The project is estimated to cost Rs 27 crore and will be completed in two years.

The DBT has released a part of the funds for setting up the building, basic infrastructure and to meet capital and recurring expenses in the first phase. The CRO will also have a green house for handling genetically modified organisms.