Govt’s massive push for biopharma, approves US$ 250 million project

New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by the Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi has given its approval for Industry-Academia Collaborative Mission for accelerating discovery research to early development for biopharmaceuticals – “Innovate in India- empowering biotech entrepreneurs & accelerating inclusive innovation” to be funded by the Government of India. The Mission will be implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) – a Public Sector Undertaking of Department of Biotechnology (DBT).

The Mission Program would be a Pan-India program. The key focus areas of the program would aid in preparing India’s technological and product development capabilities in the biopharmaceutical sector to a level that it is globally competitive over the next 10-15 years and will transform the health standards of India’s population through affordable product development.

Total project cost to be funded by Government of India is US $ 250 million (Rs 1500 crore) for five years. The 50 percent cost (US$ 125 million) for the Mission Programme will be arranged through the World Bank loan.

For the implementation, a Programme Management Unit will be set up at BIRAC which will work as an operational and functional arm that oversees and monitors program implementation and progress.

The Mission will focus on Development of specific products – vaccines, biotherapeutics, medical devices and diagnostics; establishment of shared infrastructure and facilities; building and strengthening domain specific knowledge and management skills; creating and enhancing technology transfer capabilities in public and private sector.

The Mission will provide a holistic and integrated approach to strengthen and support the entire product development value chain for accelerating the research leads to product development. This will help not only in immediate product development addressing public health needs, but will also help to create an ecosystem which will facilitate the development of a continuous pipeline of products.

The National Biotechnology Development Strategy 2015-2020 announced by the DBT lays emphasis on making India ready to meet the challenge of achieving US $100 billion biotech industry by 2025. The focus is on a generation of biotech products, processes, and technologies for affordable and accessible health care, promoting innovation R&D, establishing India as world class biomanufacturing hub, and building the required skilled workforce. To achieve this, it is important to promote industry -academia interface and enable the start-ups and small and medium enterprises to build translational innovation research capacities for affordable healthcare product development.