The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) along with Jamia Hamdard University (JHU), with the support of Department of Science and Technology (DST) has proposed to establish a Nanotechnology Industrialisation Centre (NTIC) at New Delhi.

Vineet Kumar Goyal, counselor, technology and IPR, CII, said, “The proposal is in an initial stage now, and once the project gets the Central Government’s nod, work can progress. If things go as planned the NTIC can be operational before the end of 2006. Central Government is likely to provide financial support for the establishment of this centre”.

The NTIC is proposed to be established ay JHU’s campus at New Delhi which has world-class facilities for clinical trials within its premises. The idea is to create a network of research institutions along with the industry while providing a common facility for final technology packaging and industrialisation efforts.

The individual projects could be supported by part financial support from the DST and DBT on case-to-case basis depending on their merits. The NTIC will work as an autonomous centre within the overall management of CII in order to provide a professional set up and management.

JHU has suitable infrastructure for conducting research in related fields and conducting clinical trials on drugs under investigation. JHU has proposed to provide appropriate and independent infrastructure for setting up NTIC within its campus. It will also make available existing R&D infrastructure that can be used by industries and academic institutions.

DST proposes to provide support for establishing the common facilities. It will also provide technical and administrative support in terms of networking with various national R&D and academic laboratories situated in various parts of the country.

CII while providing the management expertise to NTIC will also support for effective utilisation of the facilities. It will also help in networking of projects as per the need with various national and international experts and institutions. It has established a network with CSIR labs and academic institutions besides R&D institutions in the US, Canada, Germany, Russia, China and Ukraine, Goyal added.

The NTIC will run as an autonomous non-profit centre with a director who will be appointed on contractual basis for five years. The director will report to a governing and advisory board which will have eminent people drawn from various institutions and companies. The governing board will have expert members on fixed tenure and also members representing JHU, CII and DST. The governing board will meet once in a year to discuss and finalise the operational requirement.

The director of the centre in consultation with the CII and the approval of the governing board will finalise the manpower and financial requirements of the centre. NTIC will be audited by a neutral professional organisation for its delivery and effectiveness once in three years.

NTIC will take up projects initiated by the industry, primarily by small and medium enterprises. DST will provide support for the initial equipment required for the centre as well as a yearly grant for the expenditure towards the manpower cost of the core team and the fixed costs of the centre for the initial five years. It is also proposed that NTIC will have a success-fee component in the form of royalty / equity / one-time fee payment. It is envisaged that the centre will work on self-sustained basis after the five years support period of DST. The individual projects of the centre will be financed by the interested industry taking up the project and support drawn by the various schemes run by DST / DBT / TDB, apart from the venture funding companies.

The proposed centre will have tenure of 10 years. The governing board will make a thorough review of the centre’s activities once in five years.

Goyal added, “Nanotechnology is an emerging technology area. Considering the high capital investments required in R&D, the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) often find it difficult to make R&D investments in the area. At the same time R&D institutions in the country have a large amount of expertise and infrastructure available with them, part of which can be utilised for assessing the technology development efforts of the SMEs.”

Since India has considerable strength in R&D, infrastructure and also a large number of SMEs involved in pharmaceutical manufacturing, it is considered important to start a national initiative to support technology development in the area of nanotechnology in pharmaceuticals.