Even as the attempts on finding ways and means to expand the scope of existing Pharma R&D fund to a meaningful level are gathering strength, Kapil Sibal, minister for science & technology has made it clear that funding would not be a problem for genuine research proposals. The minister has put forward several models that can be worked out on case-to-case basis for supporting such research proposals.

"Drug companies can approach us with their projects. We can work out programmes for them," says the minister.

According to him, the ministry of S & T is developing a model where the ministry would do the entire funding for R&D. "The R&D projects thus completed would not end with the transfer of technology to the companies. The knowledge share, offered by the government-supported research programme would be considered as 50 per cent of the equity in the commercial venture that follows. The entire share of profits from such ventures would be pooled back to the corpus, which can be used for similar R&D programmes," he explained.

The minister also informed that the government is willing to consider other models like out licensing of technologies, outright sale, or retaining IP with the government organization in case of successful R & D tie-ups.

The minister had earlier announced his plans to expand the pharma R&D fund to Rs 150 crore annually instead of the interest part of the Rs 150 crore corpus that is currently made available to the industry today. The strengthening of the Pharmaceutical Research and Development Support Fund (PRDSF) is one of the major demands of the domestic industry.