BOOST TO BIOTECH COLLABORATION

BIOTECHNOLOGY: Indian and Danish research in biotechnology complement each other. Now the collaboration is receiving a boost, and shared research projects are being defined

Since 2004, when India and Denmark signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding biotech research collaboration, solid advances have been made. The Memorandum, which was signed by India’s Minister for Science and Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal, and Denmark’s Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Helge Sander, during the latter’s official visit to India in October 2004, contained a decision to set up steering groups in the two countries. Two meetings have been held, and a large number of collaboration projects have been defined. As recently as February a workshop in Hyderabad on stem cell research was held, attended by leading stem cell research scientists from both India and Denmark.

Knowledge economy

“India and Denmark complement each other in biotechnology research,” says 0 Lene Lange is a member of the Danish steering group and deputy chairman of The Danish Council for Strategic Research. “The Indians are amazing at conducting fundamental research, while we are good at upscaling – or exploiting the research in industrial production. That is one of the reasons why we have global status in biological production, with companies such as Carlsberg, Novo Nordisk, Danisco, Novozymes and Chr. Hansen as leading lights. Denmark accounts for around 75% of global enzyme production as well as bio-technological ingredients for the food industry.”

The challenge of the global knowledge economy is the background for strengthening the research collaboration between Demark and India.

“Denmark needs to concentrate on research collaboration with growth economies like India, which offers collaboration at a very high level in a number of areas,” says Lene Lange. “When a country like India, with an annual growth rate of more than 8%, makes biotechnology a focus area, then things happen. And by having a sensible research collaboration, it will automatically lead to new products and increased trade. It becomes an advantage for both parties.”

Scout-India

An important part of the research collaboration has so far been a Danish initiative involving Danish research scientists travelling throughout India to seek out possible collaboration environments and collaborations. “It is important for us to target the collaboration in the best possible way,” says Lene Lange. “We have termed the initiative Scout-India. At relatively low cost it has been possible for Danish research scientists to meet Indian colleagues, and on that basis put a number of projects into practice which we think will lead to commercialisable results.” Scout-India has been such a success from both a Danish and Indian perspective, that a corresponding initiative will be initiated by India, with ten research scientists visiting Danish research environments in order to prepare for shared projects.