Alokananda Chakraborty
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Cyber Media acquires BioSpectrum

BioSpectrum is likely to hit the stands in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Pune by end January 2003

Cyber Media India (CMI), the information-communication-technology (ICT) publishing house, has ventured into the new area of biotechnology with the acquisition of Bangalore-based monthly magazine, BioSpectrum. The magazine's erstwhile parent is IQ TechMedia, which is part of the Mumbai-based Candid Group. BioSpectrum is likely to hit the stands in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Pune by end January 2003 with a print run of 25,000 copies.

Prior to the acquisition, BioSpectrum was priced at Rs 50. While CMI sources are unwilling to comment, it seems the group is looking to relaunch the magazine with a revised price.

Foraying into biotechnology is a logical extension for the group, which has been a forerunner in the IT space for two decades now. "Cyber Media's entry into biotech publishing consolidates our presence as South and South-East Asia's largest media house in the technology space. Twenty years ago, we caught the IT wave with the launch of Dataquest. With BioSpectrum, we are now ready to catch the emerging wave of opportunities offered by biotechnology, bioinformatics etc," says Pradeep Gupta, managing director, CMI, and publisher of the Cyber Media titles.

Cyber Media will leverage its nationwide content creation team, marketing and distribution network, as well as its tech publishing expertise to take BioSpectrum national. The magazine will continue to be based in Bangalore, making India's Silicon City the fourth print publishing centre for the group. Cyber Media currently publishes trade publications DQ Week from Chennai and Delhi, DQ Channels India from Mumbai, while the other magazines from the group are published from New Delhi/Gurgaon.

For BioSpectrum, a good distribution network is the need of the hour. "Their (CMI's) all-round expertise in publishing will enable them to take the magazine to great heights and fulfil the expectations of the emerging segment of discerning readers in the frontier area of biotechnology," says S Ramdas, director, IQ TechMedia.

In its new avatar, BioSpectrum will be more ‘in-depth' than its predecessor, inform company sources. "BioSpectrum aims to be the ‘definitive' trade publication for the biotech sector, and will carry news and analyses on technological breakthroughs, policy issues, regulatory frameworks, people, products and services in biotechnology, genome research, bio-informatics, microbiology, agriculture biotechnology, health care, topical issues of Intellectual Property Rights regime and bio-environment issues," point out company executives.

Currently, CMI has seven IT magazines - Dataquest, DQ Week (Mumbai, Chennai), DQ Channels India, Voice & Data, PCQuest and Computers@home. To complete its end-to-end presence in the ICT media space, CMI also has a slew of wholly-owned subsidiaries and divisions as well. These include Cyber Multimedia and Cyber TV, Cyber India Online (www.ciol.com), IT research company IDC India (in a tie-up with IDC), Content Management Services (which provides publishing solutions to its global clients) and Cyber Expo, the exhibitions and event management company in the ICT space. © 2002 agencyfaqs!

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