Bangalore, the ‘IT Capital of India’ is also called as the ‘Biotech Capital’, with one of the largest bioscience clusters in the world. Bangalore contributes 50% of biotech revenues, and is home to 60% of Biotech Companies of the Nation. It has also the highest number of biotech start-ups. The escalation in biotech market is attributed to the growing multinational collaborations and indigenous R&D efforts in the field. With the ‘Make in India’ efforts of the present government, the industry hopes to flourish further.
In 2004, the city was selected by UNIDO as a dynamic city-region, as with its focus on the Clusters of IT and BT. Bangalore, the fourth largest IT cluster, and home to corporate giants like Infosys, Wipro, Aditi, IBM, Compaq etc has supported and received the new BT sector with warmth. Over the years, ‘India’s Silicon Valley’ contributed much to the growth of Biotechnology. The growth and establishment of biotech giants like Syngene, biocon, Aurigene, Bhat Biotech, Astra Zenica, Quintiles, Novo Nordisk, Millipore, Sartorious, Waters etc stands as proof.
The IT-BT base is also proving good for the bioIT market. Though several Indian states are vying for a share in the bio-IT market; it has been particularly successful in Karnataka, owing to the skilled manpower in Bangalore—the apex one include Bangalore Biotech Park. Bangalore is plugged into the Silicon Valley as well, through a pact between C-Camp and QB3, the University of California life sciences incubation centre in San Francisco and Berkeley.
The significant public sector base in Banglore has also contributed to the growth of BT. It is home to many nationally and internationally renowned Biotechnology research institutions including, the Indian Institute of Science, National Centre for Biological sciences, NIMHANS, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and the University of Agricultural Sciences. UAS which is the umbrella for C-Camp, National Centre for Biological sciences (NCBS), Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (InStem) provides biologists with technology platforms for their research, and help start-ups by providing facilities.
The easy availability of qualified and trained manpower, the supporting services for industries, and an environment that stimulates progressive development of technology are other factors that supports the BT sector. Bangalore, rated by CNN as the "Best place to do business" in the world, has attracted many start-ups as well. It is home to a large array of Biotechnology enterprises, including large companies, medium-sized ones, and many promising biotech start-ups.
The story of ‘Start ups’
The Sea 6 Energy’s success in Bangalore justifies the stand of BT sector. When they shifted to Bangalore in 2013, to the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-Camp), it had no product to boast! Production of fuel from seaweed was their task. As it is a long term goal, in order to stand in the business, they had to come up with a short term plan. And within a year of moving to C-Camp, Sea6 launched its first product, a crop-yield enhancement spray. They found that seaweed, which the company had been cultivating for fuel, had molecules that would significantly enhance plant growth. Last year, Sea6 launched it through an exclusive licence with Mahindra & Mahindra's auto and farm equipment division, thereby providing the company with revenues for short-term growth. Sea6 got investments from Biocon chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.
Bugworks, another startup founded by Anandkumar is developing novel methods to fight infection using a variety of biological and computational techniques. C-Camp gave space and equipment for research at low cost. They also received the intellectual support of scientists at NCBS and InStem.
The two start-ups, based in Bangalore are now brainstorming for a new partnership project along with the senior faculty from InStem, on setting up a company to pursue a set of new ideas to fight infection. Controlling infections is one of the themes running through many labs and startups here. Last year, Anandkumar, C-Camp CEO Ramaswamy Subramaniam, Suryanarayan, and a few others got together and created Escape Velocity Accelerator (Eva), an accelerator for biotech startups. It now mentors four companies, one of which is iShield, a company developing textile-based solutions for fighting infections.
Bangalore, the bio-cluster, especially, the C-Camp provides everything the start-ups need--a cheap and resourceful lab, expertise on most biological subjects, advice on products and marketing, and money in the first few years of existence. Bengaluru entrepreneurs are now looking forward to biotech parks that can let them scale up after incubation.
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