CII welcomes biotech draft

Welcoming the draft national biotech development strategy, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has said it would go a long way towards helping the sector move from limited successes to being one of the important global players, besides attracting both domestic and foreign investment in the biotech sector.

It will also encourage public-private partnership through the creation of the "Bio-Edu-Grid", a network of universities and industries facilitating pooling of resources.

CII has said the strategy will also help achieve an annual turnover of $5 billion by 2010 while creating more jobs across India.

Lauding thrust on education and training, the press release stated that the proposal to set up a National Task Force would help in formulating undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum in life sciences and biotechnology.

It also praised the increasing of the number of PhD Fellowships offered by DBT to 200 per annum.