Growth of Indian Bioinformatics companies

With the shift in the focus from software development, the IT industry looks at
bioinformatics as the next big opportunity. Many Indian entrepreneurs and intellectuals have
set up companies to take advantage of the emerging opportunities in bioinformatics. Even
major IT companies like Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Kshema Technologies,
Mascon, Satyam and Infosys have diversified their activities and went ahead to set up a
separate section/division within their organizations.

The pure-play bioinformatics companies in India include Strand Genomics, Ocimum

Biosolutions, SysArris, SciNova India, CytoGenomics, Mascon and Molecular Connections.
These companies have come out with products to cater mainly to the needs of the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Most of these companies are small and
medium enterprises based at places like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune.

This sector is the quickest growing field in the country. The vertical growth is because of the
linkages between IT and biotechnology, spurred by the human genome project. The
promising start-ups are already there in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Delhi.
There are over 200 companies functioning in these places. IT majors such as Intel, IBM,
Wipro are getting into this segment spurred by the promises in technological developments.
Companies like Ocimum Biosolutions and GVK Biosciences are also highly active in this
field, with captive training centers.

As the focus of the pharmaceutical and biotech companies has been on developing new
molecules to capture the market share, major pharma companies are also investing heavily in
this sector. Bioinformatics offers these companies a chance to participate in the front-end
drug discovery process. This has led to many institutions/organizations to offer courses in
bioinformatics at various levels.

The major concern in this sector is that the companies are focusing on global market like
Europe and the US. The Indian pharma industry is still in infancy as far as data driven drug
discovery is concerned. The people in the sector say that about 80 percent of the action in

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biopharma is taking place in the US. In addition to these areas, techniques of data mining,
scientific visualization, information storage, retrieval of special structure data and simulation
of very long DNA sequences are gaining importance.

Bioinformatics sector is contributing with a very good progression in Indian Biotech Industry
revenue. As it indicates clear from the table below, year 2006-07 scores the highest revenues
generations among last three years of Rs.145 crore with sectoral growth around 20.83
percent.
Indian Biotech Industry Revenues - 2004-07
Biotech Related Revenues in Rs. Crore
Years
Bioinformatics Total Biotech Cluster
2004-05 100 4745
2005-06 120 6521
2006-07 145 8541
%Growth 20.83 30.98

India is having a very good biotech cluster with total of 330 companies all around the nation.
When we talk about bioinformatics companies, apart from eastern region of India all other
regions are showing industrial development in Bioinformatics. South is having the highest
number of bioinformatics companies than north and west. Indian Biotech Clusters and the
governmental efforts from Department of Biotechnology for human resource development
are the most motivating forces for the sector’s expansion.
Major Bioinformatics Companies’ Share*
%Share of Sector in the
Region No. of Bioinformatics Companies
Regions
NORTH 5 12%
SOUTH 32 78%
WEST 4 10%
* Source Biospectrum

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South based companies generate almost 55 percent of the total CRO business in the country.
The biggest of number of Bioinformatics companies headquartered in a region is the South as
it accounts for 77 percent share of the total number of companies in the country. Northen
region accounted for 15 percent share of the total base. This fileld has generated such high
revenues mainly because it is home to almost all the top diagnostics companies.
Indian Bioinformatics Companies
Region Name of Bioinformatics Companies
Avestha Gengraine Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Metahelix Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd.
Molecular Connections
BioCon
Helix Info Systems
NORTH
Strand Life Sciences
Aravinda Biosolutions
Ocimum Biosolutions
Tata Consultancy Services
Satyam Computer Services Ltd.
IBI Biosolutions Pvt. Ltd.
SOUTH
Invenio Biosolutions

WEST Nicholas Piramal India Ltd.

(Sources : BCC Research and Research & Market report)

The Indian bioinformatics market was Rs 100 crore in 2005 and growing with very fast pace.
Bioinformatics applications in drug discovery and development is expected to reduce the
annual cost of developing a new drug by 33%, and the time for drug discovery by 30%.

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