Dr G Padmanabhan, Former Director, IISc and Chancellor, CUTN
There is a general issue for biotechnology and life-sciences: a lot of funding has happened in these fields; the government and the society keep asking for products where science is converted to commercial use. Huge amount of support was provided by the government; good groups were built, but one did not see many possible applications of biotechnology. This trigerred Maharaj Bahn to start the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) programme. This enabled small and medium industrial units to apply for grants to commerialise their products. The government offered 50 per cent grant and the industry funded the balance 50 per cent.
Many within small and medium sized companies had established proof of principle. The next stage was commercialisation; but there were many more hurdles involved. To smoothen that, the Biotechnology Industry Partnership Program (BIPP), was started. It was a contract research scheme where academia had to be supported to research that will lead to products and processes. After a number of bifurcations, around 2012, the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) was formed.
Big support by ‘BIG’
The most exciting of all the grants is the Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIG). Young scientists, freshers – maybe PhDs, BTechs, MTechs – who have decided to start a company, can apply for this. BIG programme offers Rs 50 lakh over 18 months. Currently there are 600 proposals running. With the numbers increasing, this process has been completely decentralised with 10 mentors handling all applications in different centres – Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Pune and Bhubaneswar. More recently another dozen have been added as associate mentors. The idea is to spread this message so that more young people come forward to start industrial units. I don’t think Chennai-Tamil Nadu is involved in this.
The biotechnology department started what is called a bio incubator. There are 60 odd bio incubators in the country. These incubators will be maintained by the DBT and will house state-of-the-art facilities. Startups can pay and use these facilities.
These centres help in creating a biotic value or bioeconomy as they call it. Years ago, it was contributing $10 billion.
It is progressing at a CAGR of around 20 per cent. The government of India said it should be $100 billion in 2025.
Biotechnology governs several aspects of our everyday life. With all these research assistance, more than 120 products have been commercialised. Most of them are from small and medium companies and startups. There have been around seven to ten unicorns amongst these.
Initially there has been hesitation to invest in biotech, because it’s an experimental science. It takes effort and a lot of laboratory work. But now the scenario has changed. Funding is supported with venture capital which encourages more and more youngsters to set up startups.
Emphasis on devices and diagnostics, not much on proteins, antibodies…
AI and IOT based diagnostics and devices are coming. It is welcome; but the concern is that these are all devices in diagnostics. Drug development has not been focussed much as it takes a long time and calls for huge investments.
The central reagent in all these biotech products is an antibody or a protein and this is being imported. This is where we have to focus and I do really believe these young scientists with phenomenal guts would address this.
Another area that we need to focus is application of technology in agriculture. There are not many startups in agriculture. Fortunately, gene editing has been approved in India recently a few days ago. We should also exploit this and go for application of technology in agriculture. The Karnataka government has a Vision group. For every scheme that the centre supports, the Karnataka government matches it. This has made Bengaluru profuse with biotechnology initiatives.
As far as biotech is concerned, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and to some extent Pune and Ahmedabad, take a place. This is a great opportunity for Tamil Nadu to get into this field, especially in agriculture.
