Hyderabad based Shantha Biotech has become the first company to secure a space in the new Biotech Park being developed by the government of Uttar Pradesh in Lucknow. As per the agreement, Biotech Park authorities would be setting up a tailor made facility for Shantha to be handed over to the company on a long term lease basis. Shantha is to set up a diagnostic unit in the park.

"Shantha Biotech has signed an MoU for setting up a medical diagnostics manufacturing unit for infectious diseases. The factory would be built as per GLP specifications for the company by us. The facility would then be given on lease." Dr PK Seth, chief executive officer, Biotech Park informed Pharmabiz.

The UP Biotech Park is all set to be a model institution-industry-government collaboration with the park having agreements with all major research institutions of the region for sharing resources. While the Department of Biotechnology is the main sponsor of the project, the collaborators of this initiative include Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Department of Science and Technology, Government of UP, IIT Kanpur, universities and industries.

The UP government has allotted 8 acres of prime land in the city for developing an incubation centre. Another major facility spread over 200 acres would be built for the industries to set up their manufacturing units. The incubation centre would be the hub of joint research activities. The units setting up their R&D facilities here would be able to make use of the spare capacitates of entire instrumentation, lab facilities available with the national research laboratories in Lucknow. "The construction of the Biobusiness Centre has already begun. This includes a Technology Incubation Centre, Laboratory Modules and Central Instrumentation Facilities. Pilot plants would be here to scale up and downstream processing industry, large scale demo and standardization, trial batch runs, contract manufacturing etc. Development of lead molecules for herbal products is also possible,' Dr Seth said.

Indian Toxicology Research Centre, National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources (NBFGR), Central Drug Research Institute, National Botanical Research Institute , Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants are all participating institutions in this venture.

"ITRC offers unique safety evaluation protocols. The companies can also make use of the rodent facility that is coming up at ITRC. There are also experts at the centre to help the industry in preparing documents for regulatory clearance. Availability of outsourcing low cost R&D facilities from a combined pool of about 26 scientific institutions is going to be the biggest attraction for the industry," Dr Seth explained.