National Biopharma Mission

Subject: Schemes

Context:

National Biopharma Mission is supporting small and medium enterprises for biopharmaceutical product development, enhancing industry academia inter linkages and providing opportunities to translate knowledge into products/technologies for vaccines, biotherapeutics, devices and diagnostics informed by minister in  Loksabha.

Concept:

• The National Biopharma Mission (NBM) is an industry-Academia Collaborative Mission for accelerating biopharmaceutical development in the country.
• Under this Mission the Government has launched Innovate in India (i3) programme to create an enabling ecosystem to promote entrepreneurship and indigenous manufacturing in the sector.
• The mission will be implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).
• The mission was approved in 2017 at a total cost of Rs 1500 crore and is 50% co-funded by World Bank loan.
• It is managed through a dedicated Program Management Unit (PMU) at BIRAC. Together with National and International experts, the most promising projects are selected in response to open Request for Applications issued by the PMU.
• The oversight to the mission activities is provided by the inter-ministerial Steering Committee chaired by the Secretary-DBT.
• The program is promoting entrepreneurship by supporting small and medium enterprises for indigenous product development (Novel Cell lines, indigenously developed Biologics, devices and Raw materials for Biologics manufacturing) and through establishment of shared facilities and Technology Transfer Offices.
• Innovation is being promoted in India for inclusiveness. This scientifically driven enterprise aims at developing an ecosystem for affordable product development and is focused on the following 4 verticals:
  • Development of product leads for Vaccines ,Biosimilars and Medical Devices that are relevant to the public health need by focussing on managed partnerships.
  • Upgradation of shared infrastructure facilities and establishing them as centres of product discovery/discovery validations and manufacturing.
  • Develop human capital by providing specific trainings to address the critical skills gap among the nascent biotech companies across the product development value chain in areas such as Product development, intellectual property registration, technology transfer and regulatory standards.
  • Technology Transfer Offices: To help enhance industry academia inter-linkages and provide increased opportunities for academia, innovators and entrepreneurs to translate knowledge into products and technologies, 5 Technology Transfer Offices are being considered for funding under NBM.