expert corner
EMPOWERING INDIAN BIOENTREPRENEURS
TO TAKE GLOBAL CHALLENGES
With the right foundation and momentum already in place, it is now critically
urgent to pave the way forward for India’s bioscience entrepreneurs, advises
Pushpa Vijayraghavan, Vice President, Sathguru Inc.
T
he last decade has been
transformational for India’s
bioscience innovation landscape.
There have been landmark success
stories even before this decade; and
accomplishments of Biocon, Bharat Biotech
and Shanta Biotech continue to be an
inspiration for today’s entrepreneurs.
However, these will always stand out as
tenacious entrepreneurs who succeeded in
navigating a difficult and nascent ecosystem.
The last decade transformed biotech
entrepreneurship from being a one-off ride for
the rare adventurous soul to a wave of ventures
that can form the core layer of a more whole
holistic innovation ecosystem that is now
emerging.
The efforts made are truly commendable and
have resulted in sustainable momentum and a
surge of entrepreneurial spirit. Specifically,
DBT’s initiatives commenced under the
visionary leadership of Dr M K Bhan and
continued under the leadership of Prof K
Vijayaraghavan have created extra-mural
funding possibilities that were erstwhile nonexistent to negligent in India. BIRAC has
played a very instrumental role in triggering
the surge of young ventures. Together, well
conceptualized funding programs such as
BIPP, SBIRI and BIG have opened windows of
non-dilutive funding that can be leveraged to
explore an idea and develop proof of concept to
defray part of the initial technology risk. This
has empowered potential entrepreneurs from
all three categories – experienced
professionals employed in industry now being
able to give wings to their entrepreneurial
dreams, students willing to take the
entrepreneurial route right after college and
expats being encouraged by the changing
ecosystem to return home to start ventures.
As we celebrate this success, it is pertinent
time to step back and review what needs to be
done today to ensure that a strong and
sustainable innovation ecosystem is built on
18
BioVoiceNews | May 2016
this foundation. I have discussed here some of
the key elements that I believe are important to
consider:
VC funding and scale-up funding
Venture capital for biotech product
development is still elusive in India. While
several global VC funds are present in India
and domestic fund houses abound, most only
have appetite for growth capital after the
company fully develops the product and has
achieved initial market validation. While
BIRAC has funded about 500 ventures, there
are not even five VC funds that biotech
ventures can approach to supplement the grant
funding and move to next stage of product
validation. This gap in private capital needs to
be urgently bridged to avoid impending
mortality.
Market creation and overall
industry engagement in innovation
Large Indian pharmaceutical companies are
yet to engage in discovery and development in
a significant way. During the last few years,
Piramal’s long standing discovery program was