The convergence phenomenon is not limited to computers and communications. There is yet another convergence happening between biology and technology- leading to the emergence of biotechnology as the next wave of scientific development. Not that technology has not been earlier used in research. But the scale of recent developments and future plans indicate that the next few years are going to see an accelerating growth in biotech and applications related to it. Much of this growth would be dependent on extensive use of computing technologies-leading there fore to an equivalent growth in the spawn-off area of Bioinformatics.

IDC has estimated that the IT spending in Biosciences will cross $ 138 million (Rs. 700 crores) in India by the year 2005 with a CAGR exceeding 10%. That opens up a new market for the growth of domestic infotech companies if they are able to develop an understanding of the infotech needs in biotechnology processes. These applications will span areas in which vast volumes of data from disparate databases has to be mined, managed and analyzed. Parallelly there is a growth for the export segment Las. The worldwide spend on use of IT in this area-bioinformatics-is also likely to spiral upwards with estimates of a $20-billion spend worldwide by 2007. Of this the US alone is likely to account for almost $7 billion.

With its traditional base of trained manpower this opens up a huge new field for Indian companies to grow in. To make this happen a convergence of IT specialists, mathematicians, agricultural scientists, doctors and many other specialists is required. Biotech area spans diverse fields that include the study of the human body, drug research, healthcare, agricultural research etc. and no single academic discipline is enough for the developments that are taking place. Each of these areas needs huge amounts of data to be gathered and analyzed on basics of accepted and news algorithms. Consider the data that just one area throws up-the Human Genome project. The human genome found in every cell of a human consist of 23 pairs of chromosomes. These chromosomes constitute the 3 billion letters of chemical code that specify the blueprint of a human being. The project envisages the identification of all 30,000 human genes and making the data available on computers. This is expected to help better mapping of 5000 known inherited diseases and formulation of drugs to cure them. Bioinformatics-the new mantra-is is meant to make such tasks a reality. It addresses issues like data acquisition, data management and distribution game plans for biologically useful information. In simple language it integrates biology and information technology to bring about new revolutions in areas of healthcare.

Indian companies have been quick of the mark and have been taking up positions for some time. Advanced Biochemical limited a Thane-based company has tied up with Pacific Corporation of Korea to manufacture genetically engineered industrial enzymes. Shantha Biotechnics a Hyderabad based company was the first to produce a genetically engineered Hepatitis B vaccine in India. The majors like Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddy and others have diverse R&D programs running which will increasingly become more dependent on computational technologies. There are many other examples. And the business opportunities for them are not only global. The domestic market for biotech is also growing rapidly. From $500 million in 1997-98, this market is estimated to have grown to $2.5 billion in 2001. Agri-biotech, drugs, and vaccines-all have shown huge growth. CII estimates that Rs 30 crore of venture capital has flowed into this industry. This is felt to be very low accounting for less than 20% of the total funding made in India. Obviously, far more inflow of VC funds is required. This opens up opportunities for all sectors of the infotech industry. For vendors, there’s a new market for hardware. SW companies can find growth in the new applications that are coming up.

As an obvious corollary there is a growing need for trained manpower in this area. The Bioinformatics Institute of India that offers a Distance Learning Program on Bioinformatics has a 400 percent growth target for the year 2002-2002. It is looking at having 10,000 registrations in its program. There are a few more courses available at a dozen odd more courses available at a dozen odd universities. As Bioinformatics involves software development and implementation for storage and analysis of a vast amount of biological data, the professionals in this field are required to have programming and database skills along with an in depth knowledge of biology. Career opportunities would include database design, database management and computational analysis. Considering that India has a large pool of scientific talent available at reasonable cost, a strong IT skilled, English speaking population, huge bio-diversity and a large number of research and development institutes, it would have a big role to play in the new sunrise industry of Bioinformatics.

But are the preparations adequate? The usual debate of India not wanting to miss this but has started. And as usual the problems are also similar-regulatory environment, speed of response, lack of proper intellectual property protection etc. The question is-what will be different this time around?

Once thing is not different. Even as this industry starts gaining momentum Cyber Media is launching a magazine to serve the information needs of this area. When this magazine was launched 20 years ago the infotech industry was in its infancy and people asked why does infotech need a magazine. Will there be similar questions for biotech?

The author is Editor-in Chief of Cyber Media,
the publishers of dataquest