Government launches 'BIO-NIVESH' to catalyse investment, boost biotechnology innovations
The government on Thursday launched ‘BIO-NIVESH’, a strategic platform aimed at strengthening engagement between biotechnology innovators and the investment community and catalysing the flow of private capital into promising biotechnology innovations for scale-up and commercialisation.
Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said innovation is incomplete without investment, while investment will not sustain itself without innovation, making closer engagement between innovators, investors, industry and Government essential for India’s biotechnology-led growth.
He further said that ‘BIO-NIVESH’ would help build the bridge required to take promising ideas from research and entrepreneurship to industry, scale and markets.
During the interactive roundtable with participating startups and investors, Dr Singh suggested that the biotechnology ecosystem could consider the feasibility of a “Big Five in Five Years” approach.
The minister said the objective should be to create an ecosystem in which science meets capital, innovation meets industry and research meets the market.
He said the government can create enabling conditions and take the initial risk, but private capital has a critical role in sustaining growth, building enterprises and taking technologies to scale.
Dr Singh said biotechnology could drive the next industrial revolution and India must not repeat the experience of being a late entrant, as happened during the IT revolution when the country was about a decade behind.
He said initiatives such as BIO-NIVESH are aimed at ensuring that India is prepared to capture the opportunities emerging from the next wave of technology-led growth.
Dr Singh further said the opening up of the space sector to private participation had generated significant interest among investors and entrepreneurs. He also referred to the opening up of the nuclear sector to private players, saying that the policy announcement itself generated strong investment interest, including from international business leaders.
On biotechnology, the minister called for greater engagement with the corporate sector and a change of mindset on both sides.
