The Biotechnology Parks and Biotech Incubation Centers established under this programme provided a good template for the promotion of Biotech startup companies and the promotion of Public Private Partnerships. Biotech Park and Incubation Centers have been established at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park, Genome Valley, Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh). The other projects approved for Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala for setting up of biotech incubation / pilot plant facilities are at various stages of development.
Biotech Park at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (Last Updated: 10 August 2010)
The Biotech Park, Lucknow has changed the paradigm of how science, biotechnology and entrepreneurship can be clubbed for the benefit of stakeholders and the Society. The Biotechnology Park, Lucknow has also been a trendsetter since it became fully functional in a span of three years from inception to maturity.
The Park till date houses 16 entrepreneurs (5 are USA based) out of which four signed agreement with Biotech Park during 2008-09 have occupied nearly all of the 50,000 square ft. of air-conditioned space available as of date for setting up their R&D and production facilities. Besides this the Park provides knowledge support to two companies of which one is located at Rajasthan.
The Biofertilizer unit of the Park graduated to a full-fledged unit with a production capacity to produce 240 tonnes / annum of Azotobacter and 500 tonnes / annum Trichoderma apart from Phosphate solublizing Bacteria (PSB). The produce is being utilized in cultivation at Military Farms, 11GRC facilities for demonstration. The Company started with humble production of Vermicompost at the Park and has expanded to a large facility at Military farms where a huge herd of cattle is maintained.
M/s Life Care Innovations Pvt Limited another Biotech company at the Park who acquired 1.5 acres of land during previous year has started construction this year for setting up its R & D and product development plant with an investment of nearly Rs 5 crores.
The Plant tissue culture facility which is being run in Public Private Partnership with M/s Sheel Biotech Limited, an ISO certified company, produced about three lakhs plants during the year 2008-09.
Chandan Health Care Limited who had earlier acquired 7576 sq ft land at the Park is in final phase of constructing the three storey building. The Company will soon begin its operation with their dedicated team of more than 300 qualified medical professionals. The Company plans to invest nearly 25 crores in the coming years.
M/S IQRA Biotech services who have setup Human DNA Bank, the first in this part of the country, has acquired permission from the ethical committee and shall very soon be developing an umbilical cord blood bank that will be a resource for stem cells. They have inaugurated construction activity of new facility recently.
During the current year, the Park signed agreements with Ms/ Cognate Bioservices Inc., USA and M/s Vivo Biosciences, USA who are planning to set up a GMP stem cell facility for cell based therapeutics.
The Park also signed agreement with Genetech Laboratories who propose to invest Rs. 50 lacs in coming months. The company is formed with a mission to produce cost effective and innovative biotech products with special emphasis to produce recombinant proteins having pharmaceutical and industrial (commercial) value.
The Park provided laboratory space to M/s Natural Wellness, USA for their quality assurance and R&D facility.
M/s India Pesticide Limited, an ISO 9001:2000 certified company, who already has an established industry joined hands the Park for production of a novel conjugate of Curcumin and Piperine that have cancer preventive properties. Its laboratory scale preparation is already in progress and will soon be followed with pilot scale production.
The Park coordinated DBT sponsored projects of 24 institutions involved with Jatropha Genetic Enhancement Programme of Department of Biotechnology (DBT). The Park as one of the Network centers has now entered Phase- II trials with 10 elite accessions (apart from 10 accessions of earlier phase). It also organized meetings of all the Network partners as Coordinator, one at Lucknow and two at New Delhi.
The Park is maintaining a satellite field station as Biotech Networking facility at Bakshi-ka-Talab in collaboration with Council of Science and Technology, U.P.
The Analytical and Quality Assurance Laboratory of the Park developed protocols for quality assurance of products of cosmetics / food industry. It assisted industry by undertaking several quality assurance analyses of healthcare products.
The unit has acquired new-sophisticated equipments such as Atomic Absorption Chromatograph, Gas chromatography and other analytical equipments. The laboratory with additional equipment shall be functional in next three months.
The Park is undertaking research in bioinformatics; an ICMR project entitled “A study of Dengue virus and Dengue hemorrhagic fever using bioinformatics tools” has been awarded to Ms P. Somvanshi working under supervision of Dr PK Seth for PhD.
The Park continued to play an important role in human resource development:
- Three DBT sponsored Training Programmes / Workshops were organized. The participants from research institutes, industries, universities and entrepreneurs were trained.
- 243 graduate and postgraduate students (120 Bioinformatics & 123 Biotechnology) received short term (one to six months) training.
- 500 beneficiaries (Managers, Officers of various research institutes and industries, Students) were exposed on biotechnology related enterprises and activities.
- 150 farmers were trained in agri-biotechnology like biofuel, tissue culture, biofertilizers, vermicomposting etc.
- 500 farmers visited the Park and were exposed to agri-biotechnology related activities and were briefed about benefits they can have from the Park.
- Students from 10 educational institutions were exposed to biotechnology, bioinformatics and agri-biotechnology activities and were briefed about biotechnology related entrepreneurship and future career prospects in biotechnology.
- CEO delivered 16 lectures in National / International programmes.
- CEO participated in 12 National / International conferences / workshops.
- 16 publications were communicated / published / accepted for publication in peer review journals.
- Biotech Park represented in Bio-2008 at San Diego, USA where CEO delivered two lectures apart from participation in business promotion meetings.
- CEO / Scientists of Biotech Park participated in 12 academic meetings.
- Scientists of Biotech Park organized programmes and participated in research related meets on Nano Biotechnology, Traditional medicines, Bioinformatics, Biobusiness, Intellectual Property & Networking to create awareness, networking amongst biotechnology stakeholders and to sensitize people.
The Park was inaugurated by Shri Kapil Sibal, Hon’ble Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Government of India; on Sunday, December 7, 2008. The Minister in his address said “that Park is a citadel of Innovation”. The Minister being convinced with the utilization of the facilities and development of entrepreneurship at the Park announced and assured continued support to by Government for setting up of Toxicology testing facility and equipments for Molecular biology and quality assurance and testing of Biotech products.
The Park has encouraged the state government so much so that the Minister for Science & Technology, Uttar Pradesh, Shri Abdul Mannan in his speech at the Inaugural function suggested to develop at least five more Biotech Parks in the state in coming years.
The Park is developing 30,000 square-ft commercial wet lab building that shall accommodate nearly 15 wet lab suites. The facility has already been approved by the DBT. However, the Advisory committee observed and recommended development of a larger auditorium that can house 200 to 300 persons.
Biotechnology Incubation Centre, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (Last Updated: 26th May, 2011)
A Biotech Incubation Center has been set up at ALEXANDRIA KNOWLEDGE Park, Genome Vally, Hyderabad. After the sanctioning of the project in March, 2004, the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GOAP) constituted a Core Committee of Biotechnology Incubation Centre (BTIC) which recommended a high level Programme Management Committee (PMC) and a Technical Advisory and Resource Group (TARG) to decide the organization management structure and operational arrangements, monitor and guide the progress of BTIC implementation. The Society for Biotechnology Incubation Centre (SBTIC) was registered in 2005.
DBT has provided support for current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) compliance for Pilot plant facilities, required for quality manufacturing and for minimizing contamination. The biotechnology incubator facility would have research laboratories, knowledge based service centers and utility generation facilities. It is mainly designed for development and scale up of bio processes and technologies. A pre-BTIC Process Generator (PBPG) component of BTIC was set up at IICT, Hyderabad to act as a front end facility to provide lab and bench scale process technologies for biotech processes.
Biotechnology Incubation Centre/ Pilot plant facilities at Kerala
A Biotechnology Incubation Centre (BTIC) in Kerala was sanctioned on March, 2005. The Biotech Park is being established in an approx. area of 240 acres at Kalamassery, Ernakulum Dist., Kochi by the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (KINFRA), Trivandrum. The DBT specifically supports the Center to promote Biotechnology based industrial activities, knowledge of traditional medicine, medicinal herbs, spices, availability of elite plant varieties and development of trained manpower and expertise etc. Since Kerala has internationally reputed ayurvedic centers, the Biotech Park would promote small entrepreneurs and units for knowledge of traditional medicine, herbs and plant varieties, spices etc. The Biotech Park will consist of three components viz - Technology Incubation Centre (TIC), Pilot Plant and Business Enterprise Zone. The TIC building would have both exclusive lab space and instrumentation labs. The BTIC would help these small units to modernize production technology and also provide quality assurance of raw materials and products aimed at value addition. The objectives are to conserve and multiply plants and spices, ensure availability of tissue culture facility for quality planting material, provide green house and hardening facilities, undertake finger printing of plant material to select elite plants for propagation, and ensure germ plasm protection for maintaining biodiversity of the state. Besides that the BTIC would have analytical facilities for quality control and R&D wet labs modules for lease to industries. The BTIC would also have Bioinformatics and Patent facilitation cell. The incubator facility would accelerate commercialization of new technologies, support new ventures in biotechnology and provide appropriate linkages to entrepreneurs. The incubation center would also be closely linked to the research institutes like TBGRI, RGIB and SCTIMS for providing technical backup support, technologies as well as technical updation services to the clients. A Project Advisory Committee (PAC) would help the Project Implementation Committee (PIC) for selection of equipment, infrastructure provided to each lab and for the selection of the tenants in BTIC. The building for housing the Incubator Facility has been constructed and detailed milestones bar-chart/ Plan of operation are in under process to monitor the progress at project review meetings.
Biotechnology Park/Incubation Centre and Common instrumentation facility at Bangalore
The Biotech Park at Karnataka will be structured into three components viz. Institutional & Research & Development Block; Biotech Incubation Centre and Common Instrumentation Facility; and Biotechnology Industries Cluster comprising of independent private industry units. The Karnataka Biotechnology and Information Technology Services (KBITS) is the implementing agency and they have identified a few Public Private Partners for the Biotech Park.
