Research house International Data Corp. (IDC) said research and development in bioscience, or life sciences, had weathered recent global economic woes relatively well and was poised to take advantage of the expected upturn.

"The market remains a bright spot for hardware, software, and services vendors alike because of continued investments by large pharmaceutical and biotech companies," IDC analyst Daphne Chung said.

"As life sciences organizations mature in their use of technology, they will look towards deriving more from IT investments already in place and are likely to turn to specialized IT services to build competitive advantage in the volatile industry."

The report said that, based on global forecasts, the IT life sciences market in the Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, would expand at an annual compound growth rate of 39 percent to be worth more than three billion dollars in 2007.

SPACE.WIRE