Venture Capital scheme soon for pharma start-ups

The Government of India is planning to set up a venture capital scheme to promote start-ups in the pharmaceutical sector.

Addressing a Roundtable session on Bio-Pharma 2015, M Aziz Ahammed, Joint Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals, said the scenario of drug discovery is changing as more start-ups are involved in the discovery of new molecules, which are later acquired by bigger companies.

₹1,000-cr corpus Ahammed said the Centre is formulating a Venture Capital scheme that would benefit young entrepreneurs. The scheme with a proposed corpus of ₹1,000 crore, which is under formulation, will aid the start-ups in new drug discovery.

Ahammed said, “Only when India invests in drug discovery, the prices will come down, which will benefit Indians as well as entire humanity.” To encourage drug discovery and innovations, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) has been established in Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Patna and Punjab.

Campus at Madurai A new campus will be built in Madurai at a cost of ₹500 crore.

P Shanmuga Sundaram, Managing Director, Tamil Nadu Industrial Developmental Corporation (TIDCO) and TICEL, said TICEL Bio Park I and II, which provides lab infrastructure facilities for bio-pharmaceutical industries, houses 30 such incubators.

Bio parks planned TICEL Biopark III that is proposed to be built in the Anna University campus, Somayampalayam village, Coimbatore at the cost of ₹55 crore, will focus on agro-food processing and poultry vaccine.

Sundaram said the aim of bio parks is to encourage research and development of new drugs and vaccines.

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