India aims for at least 1,500 biotech start-ups

“Under the new initiative, if we can create a favourable business environment, we can tap into our own products and know-how for solutions in health and agriculture,” she said. It would also help researchers to become ‘tech-preneurs’. “We have seen good interventions happening in Orissa and Tamil Nadu,” said Swarup. The Indian biotech industry holds about two percent share of the global biotech sector. At present India is ranked 12th in the world in the biotech sector and third in the Asia-Pacific region. By 2017, the size of India’s biotech industry is estimated to increase to $11.6 billion from $4.3 billion in 2012.

Indian biotech entrepreneur Kiran Majumdar Shaw has said that the emergence of biotech start-ups is resulting in a reverse brain drain. Currently, Swarup said, new products have emerged from the Grand Challenges India (GCI) Interventions. The GCI was jointly launched by BIRAC under the department of biotechnology and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2013. “These include improved sanitation technologies and bio-digester designs. Initially, they will be showcased as demonstrations on a large scale and subsequently introduced in the market,” she said.