Singapore: Manipal Education Malaysia (MEM) and Biocon, Malaysia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Biocon India, have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate for the development of human capital for the biotechnology industry in Malaysia.

The MoU was signed and exchanged by Datuk Iskandar Mizal Mahmood, managing director and CEO of Manipal Education Malaysia, and Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder, chairman and managing director of Biocon, during a ceremony held at MIU's Kelana Jaya campus. It outlines the creation of an internship program and graduate employment program for the admission of MIU's students and graduates to Biocon's Malaysia facility for training and employment. Through the MoU, MIU and Biocon will also be collaborating in the development of specialised training and skills enhancement to ensure that graduates from relevant disciplines are equipped and ready for entry into Biocon Malaysia. The MoU further provides for MEM to conduct employee training programmes at Biocon Malaysia facility.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Datuk Iskandar said, "Universities cannot operate in isolation. Industry linkages are crucial to ensure continuous relevance between syllabus with industry development and latest R&D. Industry linkages also provide our students with industrial training and employment opportunities, thus, it is our aim to forge linkages with global industry leaders, like Biocon."

Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said, "We are pleased to collaborate with Manipal International University as we believe industry-academia partnership is essential for finishing schools for Industry ready graduates who can make a meaningful contribution to the organisation they serve. As we expand our footprint into Malaysia, we want to ensure that we play our part in the development of the Malaysian Human Resource for the biopharmaceutical industry. Our biopharma facility in Bio-XCell, Iskandar Malaysia will be a fully-integrated manufacturing and R&D facility which will require many talented graduates, not just in biotechnology, but also in other management disciplines. We would like to hire a large number of good local talent and nurture them further to shape up into fine biotech professionals."