The UN Convention on Biological diversity defined Biotechnology, any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use.
In simpler words, it is a broad area of biology that involves living systems and organisms. Humankind has been applying Biotechnology in agriculture, food production and medicine for thousands of years.
Arguably, the very first usage of Biotechnology can be concluded that it started during the Neolithic revolution when early farmers selected and bred the best-suited crops to have a high yield.
The alcohol production (beer fermentation) in those days was also part of the process. As the time passed, works of Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, Chaim Weizmann, and Alexander Fleming transformed this field and added significantly to that body of work.
Biotechnology took a modern outlook in 1971 only after the successful experiments in gene splicing by Paul Berg (Stanford).
The field emerged as an industry when the commercial viability of Biotechnology was expanded by the United States Supreme Court ruling that a genetically modified microorganism could be patented and the improved intellectual property rights legislation worldwide.
In order to cater to the untapped opportunities in the industry, Dr. Nagma Abbasi established NextGen Life Sciences in 2014 with an objective to become a front runner in the distribution of innovative biological products and services for the Life science research and diagnostic market.
And also provide complete solutions in Instrumentation, Reagents, Next Generation Sequencing Services, Bioinformatics, and customized solutions to Scientists and Researchers.
The firm wants to deliver the right products of scientific needs in minimum possible time at the doorstep to facilitate research findings in order to bring improvement in the human health and environment.
The firm is poised to become one-stop-solution to cater the research needs of scientists in the field of Molecular biology, Cell Biology, Immunology, Healthcare, Drug Development and more.
Our editorial team spoke to Dr. Nagma (Founder and CEO) about her organization and her experiences in the industry. Here are some of the edited excerpts from the conversation.
The NextGen group bridges the gap in understanding the needs and pains of Researchers of Life Sciences/ Biotech industry and help scientists gain insight on the recent innovations and technologies, assuring a sound knowledge of the subject matter.
At first, we try getting insight on the customer requirements by exchanging ideas, then understand the complete workflow and expect results which in turn help us to suggest customers best possible customized solutions.
Our methods of measuring success are not conventional. I measure success in different scales like Conversations with clients, ROI, Conversion rate, Customer satisfaction, and others with parameters like referrals from existing clients, growth, profit from the revenue, conversion rate, sales target and a lot more of organization benefit factors.
The Biotechnology sector is one of the sunrise sectors in India. In current times, according to a report by Grand View Research, Inc., the global biotechnology market is estimated to reach 727.2 Billion USD with a growth rate of 7.4%.
The Indian Biotech Industry's share in the global market is about two percent, valued 11.6 billion in 2017 and is the third largest in the Asia-Pacific region. The Indian government in the Union budget 2017-2018 has projected to increase the turnover of the Indian biotech industry to 100 billion USD.
The government investments and initiatives like the 'National IPR policy' are helping the industry by promoting innovation, R&D, and entrepreneurship, also laying down processes to expedite IPR filings critical for the success of this sector.
We aim to capture 30-35 percent of the Indian market by 2020. Arriving at right prospects for sales and growth rate was rather a daunting task. The efforts of the dedicated and hard-working team paid off well.
We serve Research Institutes, Pharma R&Ds, Hospitals, and Diagnostic labs. We have maintained a long-term relationship without clients by rendering quality services-TAT (Turnaround Time) for the product deliveries by managing inventories with microanalysis of basic needs of prime customers, addressing customer problems customers in time with best possible solutions, maintaining highly skilled and trained sales and technical team.
In addition to that, we also have dedicated a team for customer satisfaction and feedback to look into the after the after sales and service related tasks.
I consider my team as my family and also believe in a flat organizational structure helping me understand every bit of my organization's behavior and quickly react to issues and difficulties. Ours is an energetic team who believes in fun learning and working.
Our milestones in the hitherto journey: –
Partnered with Multinational companies
Maintaining Double-digit growth year after year with profitability
Sustaining ourselves in the fast-growing competitive market
Retaining employees with a great level of satisfaction and their skill development with innovative in-house programs and training
Dr. Nagma Abbasi is an ardent researcher and a Biotech professional who prefers smartness. She attended IMT Ghaziabad, AMU, and IARI for her postgrad in Business administration, Doctoral studies in Molecular Genetics and Post-Doc in Molecular Biology.
She learns from her experiences, failures, and updates herself about the worldly changes through reading. She wants to be the best entrepreneur and an example for the future generation.
Her career spans over a decade working with Esteemed Research Institutes and leading Multinational companies in Life Sciences / Biotech industry across various verticals like Product management, customer segmentation, brand management, and strategic marketing.
During her last stint, her role was of a key accounts manager and she was responsible for end-to-end services. She describes her hitherto journey as bitter-sweet symphony which helped her learn a lot and it's a new experience every day so far.
As an entrepreneur, she better equipped herself in Facing Challenges, Decision making, and Risk-taking capabilities. Currently, she is learning the ways to handle the pressure of increasing responsibilities and growing business.
She is also focused on the creativity part and improvement of workplace motivation. She wants to diversify and venture into new innovative ideas to explore new business opportunities. Her peers are Scientists, Professors, Professionals in MNCs.
My advice would be that one should work with a difference. Be loyal to your customers and be creative for implementing new ideas.
We are looking forward to expanding in the bigger markets and are expecting to close at 6.5 Crore in the coming financial year. We are also going to launch our own Brand products of international standards.
In addition to that, our future plans include running Freezer programs at prime customer sites. New innovations in Biotech and its applications to improve human health makes me very excited about the promising future.
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