Toronto: Asia-Pacific countries, hoping to get a greater footing in the multi- billion Dollar global bio-tech market, vow to work more closely together to build their nascent industries at the world's biggest bio-tech meeting here.

Bio-tech industry representatives and government officials from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan tried to woo some of the 14,000 bio-tech professionals to their countries during a session at the three-day BIO 2002 meeting.

"If you walked around at BIO (2002) and look at all the stands from so many countries and so many regions, you're struck by the difficulty it is to be different," Jim McAllen, an official with New Zealand's bio-tech firm Genesis.

Although McLean's opening pitch for selling his country as a place to invest bio- tech dollars was a bit unorthodox, his remarks pinpoint the problem faced by the some 20 countries and 25 US states exhibiting in Toronto's convention center for BIO 2002.

Asia-Pacific countries, trying to develop their nascent industries where resources are limited and markets are smaller, proposed further collaboration within the region to overcome this challenge.

Tony Coulepis, from the Australian Bio-technology Association (AusBio-tech), suggested countries form an Asia-Pacific Bio-tech Federation to advance bio-tech investment in the region, which now employs some 6,500 bio-tech professionals.

"Our colleagues are all talking about the same thing. We're all talking about critical mass, joining together in order to be world competitive," Coulepis said.

Other bio-tech panelists at the session welcomed the plan as the right direction for smaller countries that want to compete against the US bio-tech powerhouse, whose companies accounted for 72 per cent of the public company bio-tech revenues in 2001.

"I think size is one of the main reasons for a regional federation," said Boon Swan Foo with Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research.

He said while collaboration between smaller countries and major US bio-tech firms has increased, a regional bio-tech federation would help "focus on Asian diseases and see how the bio-tech drugs would affect the Asian populations".

Johnsee Lee, another panelist with Taiwan-based Industrial Technology Research Institute, agreed.

"We are in support of that idea to form a (regional) federation and the reason is very simple because all these countries in Asia in terms of bio-technology are mostly still in an early stage, but the potential is large because of the large population," Lee said.

According to Ernst and Young, the Asia-Pacific region is experiencing notable expansion, particularly in Australia, China, India and Singapore.

All are hoping to capture more of the burgeoning bio-tech industry comprised of nearly 4,300 companies, including 622 public companies that generated $ 35 billion in revenues and spent $16 billion on research and development.

For example, Japan, whose bio-tech industry grew 350 per cent since 1989 to some 270 major companies, is investing $ 2.4 billion in science and technology over five years to attract more investment and help stimulate its sluggish economy.

Ausbio-tech's Coulepis believes developing a confederation will with time help grow the regional industry to "20-25 per cent of the total world market, so it's actually quite an untapped potential". He said Australia plans to promote the regional federation plan at a bio-tech conference in Melbourne on August 18-21.