The final Cabinet note on National Biotechnology Development Strategy has been formulated based on the comments received from policy makers, industries, scientists, academicians, students, voluntary and international organizations. In addition, national and regional consultations were held with all stakeholders including the industries and NGOs.

The Cabinet note was circulated to concerned ministries and departments. Comments received from ministries and departments including Ministry of Finance and Planning Commission, have been taken into account while formulating the final Cabinet Note.

The draft National Biotechnology Development Strategy was put on the Department of Biotechnology's website (on March 31, 2005) for six weeks for comments (till May 16, 2005). More than 300 responses were received from all the stake-holders.

The National Biotechnology Development Strategy aims at creating tools and technologies that address the problems of the largest section of the society, provide products and services at affordable prices and make India globally competitive in the emerging bio-economy.

The basic goal of the National Biotechnology Development Strategy is to enable emergence of an eco-system that promotes innovation. The priority is to promote innovation in Biotechnology in Small and Medium size companies. To promote R&D in SMEs, a 'Small Business Innovation Research Initiative' (SBIRI) scheme has been launched for funding early stage, pre-proof of concept research. Sectoral priorities have also been identified in the areas of agriculture, health, industry and environment.

The Strategy provides for producing more world class researchers, establish centres of excellence and interdisciplinary networks in the university system, strengthening technology transfer and patenting skills, promote biotech clusters and parks, build a strong regulatory system, improve transnational movement of biologicals, build new institutes in a few key areas where there is deficiency and link international partnerships to national goals.