The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB) has signed a memorandum of understandings (MoUs) with 4 start-up firms namely Oncosimis, Virupaksha Life Sciences, Theranosis and Bioartis, wherein all these firms will work in coordination with the CCMB scientists at iHUB to develop new drugs for cancer, diabetes, diagnostic method for cancer and kits for detecting marine diseases respectively.

After setting up of the iHUB (innovation hub) last month at medical biotechnology complex in CCMB, the signing of MoUs with the start up firms is regarded as the next big step towards further strengthening the collaboration between the research institute and industry. Dr. Rakesh Mishra, director, CCMB said, “Recently we have signed up MoUs with four biology start up companies and exchanged licence agreement. As part of this agreement our scientists in collaboration with the industry experts will utilise the facilities of iHUB and translate research in to commercial products and help incubate start-ups to the next higher level.”

Explaining about recent MoUs signed between CSIR-CCMB, the director said that Oncosimis is focusing on production of biosimilars and as part of the agreement signed with the research institute, the company is looking forward for developing novel processes to prepare a number of cancer drugs. “Our collaboration with CCMB is a big step towards boosting our innovative research into new products. As a start-up we will utilise the facilities at iHUB and services of CCMB scientists and planning to come out new drugs for treating Cancer,” said Dr. Sudarshan Reddy from Oncosimis.

Similarly, Virupaksha Life sciences, is expecting to develop high value peptides of clinical importance and develop novel molecules for diabetes. Confirming the same Dr. Sudar Olli of Virupaksha Life Sciences said, “We are planning to use iHUB to develop novel molecules for diabetes.”

However, the other two companies viz., Theranosis and Bioartis are planning to develop novel point of care devices in cancer diagnosis and kits for diagnosing marine and animal source diseases.

The iHUB set up at CCMB is providing state-of-art facilities for start-up companies where in they could use the facilities as "plug and play" mode. “iHUB is an apt platform for the start-ups in Biology as it helps incubate and execute their business in healthcare,” said Dr Mishra.

CCMB is also planning organise several activities at iHUB which include scientist-industry interaction and training programmes to produce industry-ready human resource which would specifically benefit biotech industry.