National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) has inked a pact with Tamil Nadu Veterinary University (TANUVAS), Chennai, CPCRI Kasaragod, TBGRI & CTCRI of Thiruvananthapuram.

A few technologies have been identified from these institutes which are having a market potential in the future. These technologies will be taken up for the commercialisation shortly, said V Raghuram, regional manger, NRDC, Bangalore.

TANUVAS is an autonomous institution governed by its Board of Management which regulates the polices of the university in accordance with the provision of act and statues. Various research teams of University are in a process of development of new products in veterinary and animal sciences. These include mineral mixture for livestock and Dietetic Shrikand are among the developments shared with NRDC for commercialisation, he said.

NRDC regional office will assist the University in intellectual property management issues as well as Commercialisation of the Products and processes. With the other Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institutes like CPCRI, TBGRI and CTCRI in Kerala, a memorandum of understanding has been signed for transfer of R&D results for commercialisation. "We are also in the process identification of technologies suitable for commercialisation from these above R&D Organisations," said Raghuram.

NRDC promotes inventive activities in the country and translating the R&D results into marketable industrial products, process & services. It is a public sector enterprise under the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research of Ministry of Science & Technology.

"We work in close conjunction with 200 Indian R&D Institutions and universities and NRDC has 4500 technologies in house in various fields. We have licensed over 2500 technologies for commercial production to 4000 Entrepreneurs," Raghuram said. Apart from its main activity of technology transfer from R&D centres to industry, the corporation has been actively engaged in development of technology form the bench scales to the pilot plant level or prototype stage thorough specially designed funding mechanism often in association with user industry. In developing countries for which Indian technologies are considered relevant and appropriate, the corporation has special schemes to offer in terms of know how and technology packages. The corporation has already exported a number of technologies to countries like Burma, Egypt, Madagascar, Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya Nepal, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Brazil, and Germany.

Some of the successful technologies licensed by NRDC are FMD (foot and mouth disease) vaccine, mineral mixture for cattle feed, herbal ghee, artificial heart valve, disposable blood bags, spirulina algae, plant tissue culture apparatus, liposomal amphotericin-B, cyclosporine A, zeolite A, thrombinase and psorolin.