In keeping with the latest trend of moving research outside Europe, Nycomed-Amersham, a leading British drugs company is setting up joint ventures in China and Brazil for conducting research into genetic modification. The move will not only help the company save money, but will also help it sidestep protests in the UK. British drugs companies have also been deterred from investing at home because of the growing protest movements against GM research and animal testing.

According to Sir William Castell, chief executive, the shifting of genomic research to China would be significantly cheaper than doing it in Europe or the US. This is brought about by the huge differential in salary structures. It is envisaged that the g roup could save $50m a year by employing 1,000 PhD-level researchers in China instead of Europe.

Nycomed-Amersham, which developed the machines used to sequence the human genome, is considering involvement in a number of projects that would see it take stakes in decoding the genomes of pigs, rice, citrus fruits and rainforest species.