Do you have innovative ideas? Here’s a chance to win a handsome funding award of ₹50 lakhs to pursue it. The Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and IKP Knowledge Park (IKP) will support the projects.

Proposals under the Grand Challenges Explorations India programme need to broadly focus on the healthcare area and should aim to develop affordable diagnostics and technology.

“The GCE-India programme looks to foster entrepreneurship in India. Our goal is the search for drug delivery systems, diagnostics, and technology enabled service models and medical devices that can potentially be made accessible to all,” says K VijayRaghavan, Secretary, DBT.

The areas seeking attention are contraceptive discovery platforms, global burden of antimicrobial resistance, point-of-care nucleic acid diagnostics below $2 per test; and self-testing for cervical cancer and malaria diagnostics.

In addition to ₹50 lakhs for 18 months, the awardee will be eligible for a prize of ₹10 lakh for successful completion of milestones. Successful projects will also have the opportunity to apply for follow-on funds. The first call for ideas ends on June 30, a press release said.

The IKP, which is the implementing organisation has funded 9 ideas, since the launch of the programme in 2011. “Our goal is to identify and fund projects in R&D, especially in public health space to innovative ideas and start-up”, says Vikraman Saranyan, Vice-President & COO of the ICICI Knowledge Park here.

Most often, the projects that make good progress after the 18 months can also get larger funding for scale up to commercial venture.

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