Chennai: "India needs to leverage on its huge talent pool in order to gain a leadership position in basic research, especially in biotechnology and bioinformatics fields" said Nobel Laureate Dr Sidney Altman at an interactive session on "What Business and Society can learn from research" organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Dr Altman had shared a 1989 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Dr Thomas R Cech for the Discovery of Enzymatic RNA.

Speaking at the event, Dr Altman said that the biotechnology sector has both wet process and dry process based industries. The later suits well India as much as the former, because, India is already  a recognized leader in the Information Technology (IT).

Already nations like Singapore, Australia and China are making significant investments in the biotech field and reaping benefits. However, India being a democratic nation with large talent pool can play more significant role in this most important field, he said.

Financial power when combined with the scientific talent, the result will be a great benefit to the society. Imagination and scientific experimental data are paths to building great industries, Dr Altman pointed out.

Dr Altman said that worldwide, especially in the US, non-profit organisations, mostly Government research institutions contribute over 80-90 per cent of the basic research ideas in physics, chemistry, biomedicine and patents.  This trend is also common in developing countries such as India, and hence, there needs to be a vibrant funding mechanism to increase the research activities at universities and other research institutions said Dr Altman.

Speaking about the emerging opportunities in basic research, Dr  Altman said that research in the areas of genetically modified food, generic drugs and bioinformatics are still a vastly untapped field because of novelty.  India can explore research in these fields in view of its rich talent pool, he further said.

Dr Altman said that biotech industry like other technology based industry has benefited lot from University and Non-profit bodies. It is clear from a study in US that $1 invested in basic research results in $1.25 benefit to industry and $1.50 benefit to society as a whole. Though it takes time to achieve this results, it is essential. Investment in basic research should have long term horizon, he said.

Dr Altman stressed for a good support system to translate basic research results into innovative business ideas and added that venture capitalists play a key role in achieving the goal. He also suggested that government can help this process by encouraging industry carrying out these researches by providing them with tax breaks and other incentives. 

Earlier in his welcome address, Manikam Ramaswami, chairman of CII's Tamil Nadu state council had said that Indian industry is working closely with most of the Research Institutions and the global players to take forward the research and development initiatives.

Ramaswami said that CII and the government of Tamil Nadu have jointly established the Tamil Nadu Technology Development & Promotion Centre with an objective to provide direct services to industry in the areas of new technology projects, technology upgradation and IPR. The centre is also providing services to SMEs in the fields of innovation and technology business linkages.