The Edge Daily, 3 May, 2007

Plan for biotech cluster at Kulim Hi-Tech Park

Kulim Technology Park Corporation Bhd (KTPC) plans to establish a biotechnology cluster at the Kulim Hi-Tech Park to attract industry players to use it as their operations hub.

KTPC chief executive officer Datuk Ahmad Shukri Tajuddin said the company had earmarked a site measuring about 10ha for the cluster.

We want to gather biotech companies, including pharmaceutical firms, to be concentrated in a single area, he told reporters at the launch of Kedah BioResources Corporation Sdn Bhd (KBioCorp) in Kulim on May 3.

Ahmad Shukri said the cluster was part of the Kedah state government's long-term plan to develop the park.

He said investors would be a mix of local and foreign industry players and that the cluster would probably be launched by year-end.

Negotiations with several companies have already begun,” he said.

KBioCorp, a wholly owned subsidiary of KTPC, has been in operation since July 2006, focussing on performing tests and studies on herbal products.

The company's test laboratory is equipped with state-of-the art instruments valued at RM11 million and an extraction centre is expected to be completed by July, Ahmad Shukri said.

KBioCorp chairman Ariffin Md Noor said the company's main customers would be small and medium enterprises in the food, herb, cosmetics and halal product industries.

He added that KBioCorp would also focus on tapping the halal industry in Malaysia as the company was the only private laboratory in the northern region that provided halal product testing.