Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is on a trip to the US, invited top multinational pharma major Pfizer to start a research wing in Kerala, according to the information provided by CM's office (CMO) on Saturday.
The high-level meeting took place in New York. Now, all eyes are on whether Pfizer can pull it off, while Johns Hopkins University failed to make it more than two decades back.
The talks centred around whether Pfizer can open a centre in Kerala by branching out from their existing research centre in Chennai. A Pfizer team will land in Kerala in the course of the present calendar year.
Pfizer senior vice presidents Dr. M. Raja, Dr. Kannan Natarajan and Dr. Sandeep Menon attended the meeting.
The Chief Minister showcased Kerala’s public health achievements and the state’s advantages in biotechnology, bioinformatics, statistics and applied mathematics research to woo the Pharma giant. The CM also shared with them the particulars of the Digital Sciences Park in Kerala.
The high-level delegation of Vijayan consisted of Chief Secretary V.P. Joy who made a presentation of the state, Principal Secretary, Suman Billa, John Brittas, MP, IT secretary, Dr. Rathan. U. Khelkar and Kerala Start-up Mission chief executive officer, Anoop Ambika.
Earlier, the Kerala government's move to allow Johns Hopkins University to establish a Rs 700-crore institute to promote multi-disciplinary studies, research and training in public health, which was floated by the then Chief Minister A.K. Antony more than two decades back, ended up in the dustbin after the CPI-M initially supported it and then changed its position.
CM Vijayan is currently on a tour of the US and Cuba and is expected back on June 16.
With inputs from agencies