Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), an interface agency set up by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with B V Patel Pharmaceutical Education & Research Development (PERD) Centre, Ahmedabad to set up an incubator in its campus called Bio Incubator PERD Centre. The initiative is aimed at promoting and encouraging start-up companies, young entrepreneurs and researchers to take up research activities to develop novel products.
Under this MoU, BIRAC will be providing financial assistance in the form of Rs.5 crore approximately, for infrastructural development and equipments, whereas PERD will give out property within its campus for the same. This investment will be used to set up a two-storey building specifically devoted to conceptualise and support research activities for developing affordable and novel products and technologies.
PERD has already identified an area within the campus for setting up this highly anticipated incubator centre which is expected to be operational in six to seven months. According to Dr Manish Nivsarkar, director, PERD, “We are happy to be a part of such an initiative that is aimed at encouraging new entrepreneurs to take up research activities as we have always believed in supporting innovation through research and development. Today there is a severe crunch in innovation based discoveries and initiatives and one of the main reasons for this is lack of financial aid in the form of incentives and encouragement. One of the best way to tackle this issue is by encouraging government, industry and academia interaction at a frequent interval.”
He further added that this centre will be equipped to facilitate services to about eight to nine researchers at any given time. “Through this centre young budding entrepreneurs and researchers can get excellent exposure through the mentoring support we provide along with other facilities to conduct R&D. Such initiative is very essential as it reduces entry level barrier in this field giving them the required impetus to keep up with the work,” he pointed out.
This is not the first time that PERD has entered into an understanding with the government for encouraging innovation. In fact, Dr Manish informed that at present it is considering couple of interesting projects that can be done in collaboration with government support and help. He stressed that in India there are lot of schemes provided by the government to encourage research and developmental activities. However the problem is that there are not enough awareness about the same in the public and at times even though the ideas are good they are not presented properly to attract attention to it.
“PERD has been collaborating with private as well as different government agencies on a frequent basis to convert innovative research into viable and competitive products to support and strengthen entrepreneurs to continue research work through gap filling interventions that facilitate high risk research, innovation and product development,” Dr Manish added.