Bangalore, June 8: The booming biotech industry was currently suffering from a lack of trained manpower and had been forced to resort to importing talent, which was proving to be a very expensive affair, Chairman and Managing Director Biocon Ltd, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw said.

"There is a huge gap in the specialised skilled front and we are constantly faced with the question as to how to we get highly qualified people," she said while announcing the Bangalore Bio 2007 biotech event.

"There is a dearth of trained personnel in disovery and research field, forcing us to import talent from overseas. Importing talent was proving costly," she said.

As the biotechnology grows, the thrust and challenges of trained and skilled human resources has become the key to the industry. The challenge also lies in integrating the biotech industry and the academia to address the requirements of this booming sector, she said.

The biotech industry plans to address the problem by proposing a finishing school on the lines of those of the IT sector."The finishing school will aim at roping in young graduates and putting them on various short term courses to get them ready for the industry," she said.

The school would be a joint initiative by the industry and the academia. The industry would be involved in drawing up the curriculum, she said adding that right now the school was only in a conceptualised stage.


OneIndia News

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