The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is planning to float a scheme to support the companies for technology access, acquisition and licensing, apart from the existing schemes that generally are limited to the research and development activities or soft loans.

The new scheme, being considered, will help the companies to take up activities to expand their footprint through acquisitions and technology transfers. It will also give financial support in the form of bridge funding to go for initial public offers (IPO) for small companies.

Technology acquisition scheme will be initiated to acquire important technologies or licenses in the area of biotechnology for highest national interest. This will include licensing of genes, microbial expression system, etc. and would help accelerate cost effective product development. This scheme would help industry in developing product or range of products or services in the priority social sector areas like control of major diseases, as per the proposal.

Another features of the scheme is to maintain a technology data warehouse for global acquisition of technologies, access transaction to be structured by trained professionals, access for affordable solutions, assistance for intellectual assets, nurturing collaborative research in translational validation, and product commercialization funding.

Still in the preliminary stages of approval, the proposal has been sent to the Planning Commission for consideration. It was being suggested to be implemented during the current Five Year Plan period, sources said.

One of the key elements of the scheme will be provision for “Bridge Funding” for firms to function while they are between successive private equity funding or when they are planning for their IPOs. Funds also will be made available for start-ups, to file for patents across different geographies as the cost for filing such patents could be prohibitive, sources added.