Under its Contract Research and Services (CRS) scheme, the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) has invited research proposals from the public and private universities and research institutions to take forward their research leads through validation and translation by industry.

Under the scheme, BIRAC supports academia for translational research in the country. The CRS scheme supports academia across the country to take forward their research leads through validation and translation by industry. Funding is in the form of grant-in-aid which is given to both the academia as well as industrial partner.

One of the key features of the scheme is that the academia should necessarily have an established lead supported by scientific data for validation by industry. The scheme also supports academia for some specific services such as toxicology studies, gene sequencing studies etc. as a part of validation studies and commercial scale development. Grant-in-aid is provided to the academia for in-house research which forms a part of validation of the proof-of-concept. While the IP rights reside with the academia, the industry partner will have the first right of refusal for commercial exploitation of the new IP. Exploratory research or fundamental discovery without proof-of-concept is not supported under this scheme.

Under the scheme, the academia has to be the primary applicant with one or more partners of which at least one is an industry. The proposers if so desired can opt for additional partners from another industry and or academia.

Public/private universities and research institutions having a well-established support system for basic and/or applied research with registration/recognition from a statutory body are eligible for this proposal which will close on September 15, 2016.

The CRS scheme was launched in the backdrop of the fact that numerous lab scale research leads are being generated in the academic sector through funding from various agencies like DBT, CSIR, DST, DRDO etc., which have the potential for validation and translation into products. Currently, the academia is capable of limited translational research, however, product development is generally not a part of their mandate. Moreover, they may not have the required infrastructure to take on product development and commercialisation activity.