Indian companies are sitting up to take notice of the potential Pakistan market holds. And Pakistanis are tired of paying a price as high as seven times are looking for alternative suppliers for several vaccines, diagnostic kits and other bio-industrial products. A lot of ground has been covered since Dr Anwar Nasim acknowledged India as a viable option at the recently concluded BioAsia 2004 in Hyderabad early this year. The Chairman of Pakistan’s National Commission of Biotechnology, Dr Nasim who had led the Pakistan delegation to India, is now back home spearheading the case for cooperation in biotechnology.
Government-to-Government cooperation works out to a slow process,. In spite that—of the nine Asian nations that signed the declaration for formation of Federation of Asian Biotech Associations (FABA)—Pakistan has moved the fastest. However, even with five MoUs in town and two of them in the private sector the tangible progress will be visible only towards the end of this year, believes Dr BS Bajaj, Chair of AIBA, southern chapter.
"Complex technology transfers are not under consideration for Indian Immunologicals. We have been talking to the Amson Consultant Ghani exploring the opportunity to cater to human rabies vaccine demand in Pakistan. In sourcing from India, there is a clear price advantage for Pakistan.
An almost non-existent pharma and biotechnology industry in Pakistan makes available the whole range of win-win collaboration opportunities. While AIBA is helping Pakistan to set-up its biotech association, Hyderabad-based Magene Life Sciences is making progress on providing training in tune with the training and technology sharing MoU the company signed during BioAsia. Two-year-old Magene specializes in basic biology research in areas such as in-vitro cell based assay development. The company has recently added training to its list of activities in order to fill an industry-academia gap.
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