Bio-services sector set to grow 10 times to $50 bn: Secy

The country's bio-services sector is expected to grow about 10-fold to USD 50 billion, Chemicals and Fertilisers secretary V K Subburaj said today.
The bio-services sector, which is currently valued at USD 5-6 billion, is set to increase to USD 50 billion soon, said a CII statement quoting Subburaj as saying.
He was speaking at a round-table at Global Exhibition on Services (GES).
Early this month, Fertiliser Minister Ananth Kumar had said that government is aiming to increase the size of domestic medical devices sector to USD 50 billion by taking of a slew of measures.
Speaking at the event, Department of Commerce Joint Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey said that a new policy on clinical trials coming in place in three months' time.

Pandey said that India was four-five times cheaper in terms of conducting a study, compared to other countries but that advantage was being wasted because of ambiguity of rules.

"That is going to change with the new policy on clinical trials coming in place in three months' time," Pandey said.
Subburaj said that the number of applications being filed for clinical trials in India has come down from 500 to 25 in the past three years.
"We have all the hardware but software is missing. That is the reason why we are lagging behind. In the US more than 30,000 clinical trials take place every year. Israel does 4,900 clinical trials every year," he said.