Telangana buoyed by Flanders, gives wing to lifesciences ecosystem

Hyderabad: As part of efforts to explore multiple collaboration opportunities in the lifesciences sector, the Telangana government has constituted an eight-member joint working group along with key members from the industry and government of Flanders region of Belgium.

The working group, which includes Biological E managing director Mahima Datla, Dr Reddy's Labs co-chairman & MD GV Prasad, VIB managing director Christine Durinx and Jansen Pharmaceutical chairman emeritus Ajith Shetty held its first meeting on Thursday.

While Belgium's consul general in Mumbai Frank Geerkens, Flanders Investment & Trade director of inward investment Filippe De Potter and Flanders trade and investment commissioner Jayant Nadiger represented the Belgian and Flanders government, Telangana industries principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan and Telangana lifesciences & pharma director Shakthi Nagappan represented the state government.

Pointing out that this will be a long-term engagement, Ranjan said that the working group will zero in on the specific areas of collaboration and the kind of work companies from Flanders region could do more in Telangana and vice versa.

"We will also find out the kind of pharma products they typically import that are not accessible to them easily and if some of those products are manufactured by our companies we will try to encourage exports through Pharmexcil," he added.

The Telangana government has already announced its partnership with the Flanders region in Belgium that is known for its vibrant lifesciences ecosystem comprising over 350 companies. The partnership will explore multiple opportunities in the lifesciences sector aimed at vaccines and mRNA technological platforms, immunotherapy, life sciences university partnership and cluster-to-cluster collaborations (VIB and Genome Valley in particular).