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PALO ALTO - 05/13/05 - Agilent Technologies Inc. has outlined plans to expand its existing operations in India with the introduction of genomics solutions into the country's burgeoning life sciences market.

The company currently markets technologies for the chemical, environmental, and pharmaceutical manufacturing industries in India.

Its new plans are expected to extend the Palo Alto-headquartered firm's reach into the medical research, pharmaceutical, and agro-biotech sectors.

Agilent's initial plans focus on introducing its DNA chips or biochips - also known as microarrays - into the market this summer "to improve the productivity of gene-expression and genomics research," said a statement released by the company.

Microarrays are small pieces of glass dotted with thousands of strands of DNA, each of which corresponds to a specific gene in the genome.

According to the statement, Agilent's strategy "is to use biotechnology as a tool to improve the quality of life and position India as a worldwide hub for biotechnology research."

Government-aided infrastructure is expected to stimulate research in areas such as genomics, stem cells, molecular medicine, metabolic engineering and cell biology, it said. 

Agilent reportedly does business in 110 countries and generated net revenues of more than $7 billion in fiscal 2004.

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