India’s Dept of Biotech plans financial help for the biotech industry

15 September 2014

Anti-cancer compounds, immunogens against H1N1, cheap recombinant human insulin, stem cell research - the Indian biotech industry is in the thick of it all. Though bubbling with innovative ideas, a large number of small biotech companies and entrepreneurs have very little funds to bank on. India's Department of Biotechnology has decided to extend a helping hand, reports The Pharma Letter’s India correspondent.

MK Bhan, the founder chairman of the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), set up as a Department of Biotechnology’s interface agency and to serve as a single window for the emerging biotech industries, has emphasized that India can leapfrog into the biotech future shaped by materials like bacterial rope and DNA chips.

Mr Bhan, the former secretary of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), insists that bacterial ropes and DNA chips can be developed with the available knowledge and skills in India, but for it to happen quickly, the country needs to invest big time in R&D.

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