Cape Biotech is investigating a possible bio-prospecting partnership which would enable South Africa, Brazil and India to share each other’s resources in order to capitalise on their rich biodiversity.
Bio-prospecting is the search for valuable compounds in nature — plants, animals or micro-organisms — that can assist in the development of new drugs or industrial products.
Dr Mark Fyvie, MD of Cape Biotech, recently attended an India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) trade delegation where he met with his counterparts in New Delhi and where a bio-prospecting memorandum of understanding was signed. Fyvie believes the three countries have “huge tracts of biodiversity” that can benefit each other, particularly sharing and collaborating on information platforms.
Biotechnology is one of the core focus areas of the IBSA agreement and representatives from government and industry met to discuss, among other issues, setting up tangible collaborations in the areas of functional genomics and high throughput biology.
“We are starting off very pragmatically and see this as a process that will gradually align the biodiversity objectives of the three countries,” he said.
“The rollout is envisaged in three stages: sharing and learning, exchanging technologies and technology transfer, and eventually shared facilities among the three countries, but this will only be potentially possible once the alignment of national policies has begun.”
Fyvie was very impressed with India’s investment in skills development.
Cape Biotech is the Western Cape-based Biotechnology Regional Innovation Centre, an initiative of the Department of Science and Technology.