Facilitating biotech in Pahang

Wednesday, 06 January 2010

The Star - by : ROSLINA MOHAMAD

KUANTAN: Pahang is ready to roll out its biodiversity and biotechnology action plan set to be implemented over 12 years.

The plan will facilitate access to scientific and technical personnel in all relevant disciplines and fast-track certain aspects of research and development as well as bio-enterprises.

It will also provide recommendations on sub-sections that should be emphasised.

The Pahang government commissioned University Malaysia Pahang (UMP) to draw up the action plan which took six months to complete.

UMP research dean Prof Dr Jailani Salihon said that Pahang had the potential to succeed in the biotechnology industry.

“India, for example, was nowhere on the biotechnology map 20 years ago.

“Today, virtually every big player in biotechnology has a manufacturing plant in that country. The reason for this is that India developed the required research infrastructure and human resource base and kept labour costs low,” he said in an interview here recently.

He added that the biotechnology industry was now worth US$60bil (RM204bil) globally.

As for Malaysia, the Government drew up the National Biotechnology Policy that set the objective of creating 280,000 jobs, establishing 100 biotechnology companies and generating RM270bil in revenue by 2020, he said.

This reflected the potential of the industry if the plan was worked out accordingly, he added.

Prof Jailani said that Malaysia needed to move up the value chain in providing human resources, facilities and support systems to justify its higher costs compared to India and China.

“Currently, the incentives are not enough,” he noted.

On Pahang, he said its human resources, facilities and support systems were insufficient to cope with the expected development.

The presence and awareness of biotechnology were low and no major spin-offs had come out of federal-funded institutions and private-sector research laboratories, he pointed out.

“There should be incentives for people, since biotechnology relies on knowledge and innovation, and policies must be put in place to encourage a culture of innovation among the youth.

“We have to redirect the career paths of young graduates from seeking employment to setting up small companies at university incubators and developing new biotechnology products, processes or services,” added Prof Jailani.

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