National Missions
The National Biopharma Mission (NBM) was approved by the Cabinet for implementation in May 2017 with a total cost US$ 250 million which is 50% co-funded World Bank. The program named Innovate in India (I3) is an industry- academia collaborative mission of Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India in collaboration with World Bank for accelerating discovery research to early development of Biopharmaceuticals. It is to be implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).
NBM aims toward making India a hub for design and development of novel, affordable and effective biopharmaceutical products and solutions. The program will focus on the development of new vaccines, bio-therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices to address the rising burden of diseases in the country. It would benefit the Indian population at large through affordable and accessible product development.
The mission shall nurture and strengthen the ecosystem for accelerating India’s technological and product development capabilities in biopharmaceuticals, towards achieving our target of India being a $100 billion Biotech Industry by 2025 and also capturing 5% of the Global Biopharmaceutical market share. NBM also addresses the key components of the Vision outlined in the National Missions -Make in India and Start up India and as well as those of DBT’s National Biotechnology Development Strategy.
The Program would aid academic researchers (enhancing their translation capability), empower bio-entrepreneurs and SMEs (by decreased cost and risk during early stages of product development) and the industry (by elevating their innovation quotient). It shall facilitate the creation and enhancement of technology transfer and intellectual property management capacities and capabilities.
NBM shall also bring isolated centers of excellence together, enhance regional capabilities and strengthen the current bio-clusters network in terms of capacities as well as quantity and quality of output. This would lead to the creation of several dedicated facilities for next-generation skills, and hundreds of jobs in the process.
The programme intends to collectively bring together private sector, Government and academia, which we can call the triple helix of medical innovation, leading to spur in development. The initial focus will be on Vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV), Dengue and biosimilars for cancer, diabetics and rheumatoid arthritis and medical devices and diagnostics.