“If Bangalore is the Silicon Valley, Hyderabad is the Genome Valley. India’s future is in biotechnology,” Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy is excited as he makes a presentation on the biotech boom in Hyderabad.
Well, Dr Reddy has made a point.
Hyderabad is fast emerging as the biotech hub of India. The government of Andhra Pradesh has christened the city ‘Genome Valley.’
“Genome Valley is our answer to the Silicon Valley of Bangalore. It is making waves not just in India, but across the world,” an official assisting Dr Reddy in the biotechnology sector points out.
  A journey to the biotech clusters in and around Hyderabad testifies to the credentials of Genome Valley.
Genome Valley is India’s first state-of-the-art biotech hub that provides research, training, collaboration and manufacturing activities for biotech companies. It is spread over 600 square kilometers. More than 100 biotech companies are operating out of the Genome Valley today. The Park is situated in an aesthetically landscaped lush green 200-acre campus in Turkapally, near Hyderabad. It offers plots of land — of varying sizes — to build research centres and pilot plants as per specific requirements of resident companies.
 India has more than three million scientific and technical manpower; India has over 0.6 million sciences and technology post graduates.
India has some 700,000 graduate engineers; the country gives over 3,500 doctorates in sciences every year.
After the United States, India is home to the largest pool of English-speaking scientific manpower.
Nearly 40 per cent of the start-ups in Silicon Valley in the US were from Indians.
One out of every ten scientists in the US is an Indian.
But what did the Andhra Pradesh government do to identify that biotechnology was the engine of growth for the state to succeed?
First, some years ago, the government launched India’s first biotech venture fund with a corpus of $30 million.  Soon, there was a rush from Indian and foreign companies to Hyderabad, making it Genome Vallaey. Some of these firms are:
Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park:
The Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) project is spread over 400 acres. It provides state-of-the art infrastructure with support facilities like instrumentation facilities, incinerator, and secondary effluent treatment plant, distilled, deionised DM water, cold storage and water housing facility, and animal house.
It has a technology incubation centre. A belt of 25 kilometers around the park has been
 declared as a ‘pollution free zone.’ The Park runs a pilot plant for the validation of the commercial viability of technologies and products.

ICICI Knowledge Park:
It is a world-class centre for leading-edge, business-driven research in the country. The Park is also India’s first knowledge network for collaboration between researches. It is a 200-acre campus with world-class infrastructure and support facilities. It is promoted by the ICICI Group.
It encourages research and development in all knowledge-intensive fields. The current focus of the Park is on the areas of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals technology, specialty chemicals, new materials, information technology and telecommunications.

Biotechnology Incubation Centre: It runs research and development laboratories, multi-utility plant, specialised pilot plant and an analytical and quality control center.

Agri -Business Incubator of ICRISAT:
The Agri-Business Incubator provides business support to existing and new agri-business, developed and housed at ICRISAT. The incubator helps in reducing the risk in commercialization of agri-technologies.
It has built a network with R&D centers of excellence, universities, academic institutions and agricultural-related incubators and incubates globally.
Apart from these major parks, Genome Valley is home to the leading biotechnology institutions and private pharma companies.
The institutions include: Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Centre for Cellular and
Molecular Biology, National Institute for Nutrition, and Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics.

Top Biotech companies:
Top private biotech companies include: Avra Laboratories, Bharat Biotech International, Bijam Biosciences, Biological E. Ltd, Bioserve Biotechnologies, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Genotex International, GVK Bio, Indian Immunologicals Ltd, Indigene Pharmaceuticals, Jupiter Biosciences, Krebs Biochemicals,
Microbiomed Products, Nuziveedu Seeds, Prabhat Agri Biotech, Satyam Computer Services, Shantha Biotechnics, Tata Consultancy Services and Vimta Labs.BioAsia  2008 demonstrates clout:
The BioAsia-2008, the global bio business forum facilitating innovative partnerships to explore the latest developments in biotechnology and bioscience arena, held in Hyderabad International Convention Centre in the first week of February this year has demonstrated the clout of the biotechnology development in Andhra Pradesh.
The highlight of the BioAsia this year is the Biotechnology Incubation Centre (BTIC) which is the latest feather to the crown of a collaborative initiative between Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi, government of Andhra Pradesh and the Hyderabad-based Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) to promote the advanced biotech business and entrepreneurship in India. The BTIC is located at the Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park in the Genome Valley here. It harbours a great resource with all biotechnology tit bits and amenities on the spot which can be accessible to different biotech companies, academic research institutions, major universities, public and private hospitals for human development in the field of biotechnology.
This world class  facility particularly focus on biomedical related businesses including
biopharmaceuticals, herbal medicine, regenerative medicine, alternate medicine, health and dietary supplements, biocides, biomaterials, molecular and conventional diagnostics, the genome oriented customized medicine and biocosmetics production.
Another important facilities to be dedicated to the nation are the Animal Resources Facility, an ICMR project, that is coming up in Hyderabad at a cost of Rs 500 crore (first phase at a cost of Rs 250 crore) and the Stem Cell Sciences which is established by the Liver Research and Diagnostics with the support of the Andhra Pradesh government with an investment of Rs 150 crore.
The US-based Purdue University is all set to enter into a research tie up with the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, one of the constituent national laboratories of the Council of Scientific

The scientists at the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) have developed a DNA based diagnostic chip for identifying more of the 15 pathogens that cause eye disease.
Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary activity involving chemists, biologists, engineers and many other specialists. Its scope is enormous. There are sophisticated new drugs produced in the milk of transgenic sheep, microbial cocktails that can clean up contaminated land transgenic plants and fish that yield more food or resist disease - and hundreds of different micro-organisms able to produce fermentation products such as amino acids, vitamins, enzymes and antibiotics. It is playinga major role in serving the mankind. Be it in forms of improved plant varieties or developing vaccines.
Biotechnology studies:
One can study Biotechnology at Undergraduate level (B.Sc/B.E/B.Tech, 5-year integrated B.Tech./M.Tech) and at PG level (M.Sc/M. Tech) and pursue specialised courses at research level, or After graduating in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Microbiology, you can take admission in Post graduate courses

Jobs opportunities:
Biotechnology is a knowledge based industry requiring manpower that has the right combination of understanding of technology as well as managerial expertise to harvest technology into profit making ventures. It is emerging as one of the fastest growing employment sectors in India today, promising a plethora of job opportunities under its umbrella. Demand for biotechnologists is growing in India and abroad, particularly the US .

*The fledging biotechnology industry in India has crossed the $ 1 billion mark and is moving towards the targeted $5 billion by 2010 and this industry which is growing at pace is facing shortage of skilled manpower .The sector employed 4200 graduates and postgraduates, 1700 B.Tech/MBAs, 1900 M.Tech. and M.Phils, 400 Ph.Ds, 700 others during 2003-04.
*Source: Biospectrum-ABLE Survey)

Post-Graduate Courses:

 M.Sc: B.Sc. Degree students with any two subjects such as Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, Microbiology, Environmental Sciences, Human Genetics, Fisheries, Aquaculture and Mathematics with 50% marks in optional subjects. Admissions are based on the rank obtained in AUCET of Biotechnology conducted by Andhra University.
PhDs: M.Sc/M.Tech/M.Pharm Degree in Biotechnology with a minimum of 50% marks. Admissions are based on Qualification in National Eligibility Test (NET)/ Entrance test conducted by the university.