Bangalore has an answer to Bacteria!

While there are well documented stories about IT and Biotech innovations happening in Bangalore, here is one not so well known discovery. GangaGen Biotechnologies recently received two US patents for its Bacteriophage technologies. This city based biotech company focused on the development of bacteriophage-based products for prevention and treatment of bacterial infections. Bacteriophage is a virus which was first found in the waters of river Ganga, has the ability of infecting bacteria and killing them.

One might remember an old belief that river Ganga is self-cleansing and also cleans our sins. There is a scientific fact to back it up; in 1896 a British scientist M.E. Hankin noted that the river water contains bacteriophages which kill cholera bacteria. Inspired by this fact, Dr.J.Ramachandran of GangaGen took up research on bacteriophages in 2001, but faced two major issues.

The bacteriophage enters and reproduces rapidly inside the bacteria and comes out in large numbers, scattering bacterial toxins inside the human body. GangaGen scientists knocked out the phage gene that codes for the Lysin enzyme responsible for breaking down the bacterial wall and produced a Lysin-deficient bacteriophage that kills the bacterial host, but remains inside the dead bacterium.

Dr Ramachandran has already demonstrated the efficacy of its first commercial product to control E.Coli bacteria in cattle which is awaiting regulatory approval. He said phage therapies would have immense revenue potential since they are the only firm working on non-antibiotic drugs. Over the years, bacteria have developed enormous resistance to known antibiotic drugs. In the next five years, the company pegged its revenue from human food safety applications at $50 million and animal therapies at $10 million. GangaGen is right now working with Lallemand, a major animal feed distributor in Europe, to develop bacteriophage products to control Salmonella infections in poultry and pigs.
details: http://gangagen.com/corporateframe.htm

Where is the boom?

Yet another Bangalore Bio expo happened in city and all the concerned dignitaries painted rosy pictures about the growth prospects in the biotech sector. The Queen bee of biotech, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD of Biocon expected the revenues of this sector to go up from the current $1 billion to $5 billion by 2010. Another 46 new firms have come into the city taking the total number of companies to 177 in the state. The CM Dharam Singh said that the work on Bangalore Helix Biotech Park will soon commence and the central government has already sanctioned Rs.14.45 crore for the project.

This was enough for our beloved scribes to gung-ho about the sector announcing new firms are coming and more jobs are being created. But if you look at the sector which takes only post-graduates and PhDs as researchers, till now we find only 20,000 people being employed, while the freshers are roaming around in the expo trying to push their resumes.

If we look at statistics, a CII-Rabobank India Joint Report of 2003 stated that the market for biotechnology products in India is estimated to be about $150 million (Rs 750 crore) in 2002 and it is estimated to grow 10-fold to $1.5 billion (Rs 7,500 crore) and to $4.5 billion by 2010. this is quite contrary to what our Queen bee said which translates to Rs 4,500 crore at present! One look at the annual report of Biocon which dominates the market gives you the clear picture. Biocon Group’s FY 2005 revenue crosses Rs.700 crores, so can anyone enlighten us where is the rest Rs.3,800 crore coming from…

The big city fight is back

Quiz question: What is the best way to get the Bangalore International Airport up and running? Answer: Encourage a Bangalorean to help Hyderabad to go ahead on its public-private-partnership airport project so that we shall burn in envy! The city based GMR Group and Malayasian Airport Holding consortia will build a Rs 1,400 crore Greenfield airport at Shamshabad on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

Bangaloreans who worry about their city going down the drain, atleast can have solace that our arch-rival city is back in the reckoning and might give us a stiff competition. Heard that GMR group, inspired by the Dubai airport model, is pushing to make Hyderabad airport into a both cargo distribution and airline hub, since the city is equidistant from the three metros. Moreover it is focussing on getting revenues from non-traditional sources which will reduce the dependence on aeronautical revenues. (hey, do you remember the word 'equidistant' being used regularly by AP's erstwhile CM Naidu!)

It will have a huge ‘Airport Village’ with a warehouse for cargo storage, retail space for shops restaurants, business centres a mini golf course and a five star hotel. Now this surely takes away the cake from us, but heard that many Bangaloreans are happy that the city can hold on its growth and leave some breathing space!

Is the talent moving away?
While we can take the blame for the sad state of our city's infrastructure, we are surely not ready to take accusation that the talent is moving away from the city. Recently MaFoi Consultants presented their Employment Survey which is a quarterly study on Indian employment trends conducted since November 2004. But the present Quarterly forecast for Apr-June 2005 has brought out some strange facts.

The Employment Index measuring the pace of recruitment in the present quarter showed that Karnataka was in the 7th spot with an index of 1.17 while Tamilnadu was at the top with 3.16 index. The surprising fact was that figure was way below national average, making us wonder whether our state has completely slowed down in its economic progress after the end of Simply Marvellous Krishna’s regime!

Another shock was Bangalore was at a lowly 7th spot with 1.28 index while Chennai topped with 3.38. Even smaller cities like Ahmedabad and Pune had better figures. MaFoi justified it by saying that the IT/BPO sectors had a smaller portion in the entire survey, while telecom, retail, hospitality, garments, pharma sectors brought in the major contribution. But Bangalore is leading in hospitality and garments sectors with companies recently moving in here. Now what should we conclude from these facts… Is Bangalore hiring less people right now or the companies are moving away from our state in the coming quarter due to our coalition government…