India's first biotech incubation centre to come up at Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park in Hyderabad with a corpus of Rs.23 crore. The centre will provide assistance to start-up biotech companies and its equity base may be increased by an additional Rs.5 crore through private participation.

The incubator will provide opportunities in areas of enzymes, organic intermediates, antibiotics, recombinant proteins, biopharma products, primary and secondary metabolites and biospecialties. R&D and industry relations are likely to grow through the incubator as incubators play a key role in developing new ideas and making those ideas viable.

Union Minister for Science and Technology, Murali Manohar Joshi said that seeing the potential for growth of biotechnology based industries in the state, the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, Department of Industries and Commerce, Government of Andhra Pradesh and the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) have established a strategic linkage to set up this centre.

He said that the biotech sector has grown tremendously in the recent years. Research and Development is needed to improve the sector and incubators will motivate bio-scientists to conduct more research and will lay a platform to make them entrepreneurs.

Caretaker CM Chandrababu Naidu said that incubators are very essential for biotech companies. Realising its importance, government of AP has agreed to provide infrastructure support and land, whereas government of India is to support for necessary equipments. He urged the central government to consider another incubator at Vishakapatnam.

The incubator is expected to be fully operational within two years. The Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad would be establishing and commissioning the biotech incubator. It will also source technologies from various national laboratories and academic institutions.

Nearly 60 per cent of world's 3500 incubators are in developed countries. North America and Europe have 2050 incubators, China has over 465 incubators. And the incubator to come up at Hyderabad is the first of its kind in India. India is yet to make notable contributions in this area.