DuPont opens integrated knowledge center in Hyderabad, India; its first outside US

03-Dec-08

DuPont has recently opened a 15-acre DuPont Knowledge Center (DKC) in India located in the ICICI Knowledge Park in the Hyderabad's Genome Valley. The center will house a biotechnology center, materials research center and global engineering design center, making it the first integrated knowledge center and a sixth major R&D facility outside the United States. DuPont 2007 net sales in Asia Pacific stood at US$5.18 bln while India showed an average of 25% annual growth rates. DKC brings together basic research, applications development, engineering design, bioinformatics and patent services to serve the Asia Pacific region, a key growth market for the company. Hyderabad-based DKC is expected to accommodate more than 300 scientists and other employees by 2009. At full capacity, about 600 scientists, engineers and other employees will work at the DKC. DKC research will use the DuPont integrated science approach of creating valuable products and technologies using unique combinations of biology, chemistry, materials science, engineering and other science disciplines to further develop the company's application pipeline. The project took 17 months for realization after company's announcement in 2007 about plans to construct its first R&D center in India. Other major DuPont R&D facilities are located in Wilmington, Del.; Shanghai, China; Utsunomiya, Japan; Hsinchu, Taiwan; Wuppertal, Germany and Meyrin, Switzerland.