The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has floated National Biomedical Resource Indigenisation Consortium (N-BRIC) to drive focused indigenous innovation.

DBT constituted N-BRIC as a public-private-partnership to drive indigenous innovation especially in developing reagents, diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics for Covid-19. The consortium will be based out of C-CAMP in Bengaluru and aims to provide a collaborative platform to build indigenous biomedical resources towards a self-reliant biotech ecosystem.

Renu Swarup, Secretary of DBT, said: “To meet our biotech and biomedical needs, the country needs to be self-reliant for product manufacturing and also the components, reagents, resources across the product development chain, N-BRIC brings together academia, industry, start-ups and MSME to serve not just the country but the world. To meet the Covid-19 challenges, this is a good start and we hope to enlarge this to include all required resources, platforms and facilities.”

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson of N-BRIC, said: “This consortium is of immense national importance at a time of an unprecedented global health emergency. This will enable us to synergise and optimise the latent capabilities we possess across the pyramid of academic research labs, start-ups, MSMEs and large enterprise to deliver innovative solutions at scale for India and the world. I congratulate Renu Swarup for spearheading this vital initiative.”

“During these difficult times, we have realised the dire need of biomedical resources for healthcare system and research community. This consortium, a converging platform for all stake-holders, is a major effort by DBT, conceptualised by DBT Secretary Swarup, to address this need across country and promote indigenous development and manufacturing. This could be a massive paradigm shift towards fostering high-end research and innovation,” Taslimarif Saiyed, convener of N-BRIC, said.

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