The Hindu Business Line : Ekta Incubation Centre gets lab for pathogen research

Kolkata April 1 The first Technology Business Incubator (TBI) in the East and North-East will soon have a modern P-3 laboratory where research in pathogens — which have to do with applications in the pharmaceuticals industry — would be undertaken.

The proposed P-3 laboratory would be set up at Ekta Incubation Centre that has been set up at the Salt Lake Electronics Complex here by the West Bengal University of Technology with support from the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board.

According to Mr Arindam Dutta, Resource Person (Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Growth), Ekta Incubation Centre, in-principle funds sanction has been received for purchase of equipment required to set up at the laboratory. Once ready, start-up companies focussing on areas such as pharmaceuticals and plant & industrial biotechnology need not look beyond Kolkata any more to pursue their activities in these areas.

Mr Dutta said steps had been initiated to communicate to potential entrepreneurs that physical incubation facilities were available at Ekta. Towards this end, a workshop on entrepreneurship development in the field of biotechnology was organised here recently. It was attended by 40 people and "resource persons" from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata were roped in to give their inputs.

According to him, Ekta Incubation Centre here is already into "capacity-building programming mode". One start-up company has already begun work in web designing and educational software development even as three more from the ICT domain would soon set up operations.

"We are now focused on spreading the message that physical incubation facilities are available right here in Kolkata. We will also help start-ups to access other incubation facilities across the country," Mr Dutta said.

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