biotech August 2012 32pages.indd - Biotechnews

REPORT
SBIRI
Spurring Innovation
Suchita Ninawe
Small and medium scale enterprises have emerged as an integral part of the growing
biotech sector. What they lack is timely support and critical mentorship to convert
ideas and research leads into viable processes and economical products. “Small Business
Innovation Research Initiative”, a pioneering programme in PPP mode that was launched
by DBT in September 2005 has addressed these concerns to a considerable extent.
Biotech sector in India has
beaten the trends and
continues to grow at an
average of nearly 20%. This is
despite the downward trends
in global economy in terms of
production, revenue and profits.
Biotechnology caters to a wide
range of areas including health
and disease, food and agriculture,
environment and industry. Growth
may vary from sector to sector, but
has been significant nevertheless.
During last few years, Small and
Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
occupied a significant place in the
development and performance of
biotech sector that is, as expected,
technology and innovation driven.
Technology innovation in
biotechnology is highly risky and
requires significant investment
and careful nurturing. The “Small
Business Innovation Research
Initiative (SBIRI)” was launched
by DBT in year 2005 to support
R&D in SMEs in the biotech sector.
SBIRI provides early stage funding
to resolve financial constraints
that hinder successful R&D in the
Dr. Suchita Ninawe, Scientist ‘F’ & SBIRI Nodal Offi cer, Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi
Email: sninawe@nic.in
biotech sector and also strengthens
the academia-industry interaction
which is critical for accelerated
product and process development.
The department through SBIRI took
the challenge to spur and enable
the private industry to espouse the
path of innovation, attempt new
ideas, take more risks on shared
basis and get involved in late-stagedevelopment
too wherever the proof
of principle has been generated.
In this context, timely access to
adequate funds and technical
mentoring, the major bottlenecks
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SBIRI : Eligibility Criteria (Industrial Organisations)
SBIRI
Spurring Innovation
• Should be registered in India and must fulfill the criteria of Small Business Unit (i.e. an enterprise with not
more than 500 employees in R&D).
• Majority (>50%) shares should be held by Indian citizens including NRIs.
• Should have an in-house R&D unit recognized by Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR).
OR should have ownership of IPR, developed or acquired, which is proposed to be exploited under the project.
faced by the biotech industry, were
the focal points for SBIRI. These
needs are still growing vis-à-vis
the growing number of new startup
entities in biotech that are
showing interest to put a step ahead
on innovation path through the
programmes like SBIRI.
During these seven
years since SBIRI launch, the
department has been successful to
considerable extent in achieving
the core objectives of the scheme.
It has created an ecosystem for
translation of innovations into
April 2012
Inputs available with DBT
commercially tenable products/
processes by private sector and
promoted public-private-partnership
in technology development. As a
unique institutional mechanism,
SBIRI has consistently prioritized
early stage funding for high risk
innovative research and extended
support for product development
and commercialization. Apart
from this, SBIRI has filled a
gap in that knowledge and leads
developed through long years of
research in public institutions can
now be supported towards product
development and commercialization
SBIRI : Evaluation Process
Receipt of Proposal
Short listed Proposals
Apex Committee
with active participation of private
industry. Before SBIRI came into
being as DBT’s flagship initiative to
foster innovation in the small and
medium scale enterprises in Indian
biotech landscape, unlocking the
potential of these organizations in
the Biotech Sector was not getting
the attention it deserved. SBIRI
covers all areas of biotechnology
including agriculture and allied
areas; health - care; industrial
processes & products; environmental
biotechnology; bio-medical
devices and bio-instrumentation;
bioinformatics.
Technical Screening Committee (TSC)
Presentations by Industry TSC Site visits to Industries
Final Recommendations
Agreement Executive & Sanctioning of Project
Monitoring by Project Monitoring Committee
BIOTECH NEWS
9

SBIRI
Spurring Innovation
SBIRI : A MIRROR OF
COORDINATED EFFORTS OF THE
SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY
The scheme is operated through
the Apex Committee of SBIRI
(ACS) and the Technical Screening
Committee (TSC). Representation
of various concerned Ministries/
Departments on ACS gives a sense
of having a collective decision
on each project supported. TSC
comprises of eminent scientists
drawn from institutions across the
country. An initiative as unique as
SBIRI would not have seen the light
of the day without astute guidance
from the very top and motivated
efforts of many committed scientists
who worked hard. The highest
level of interdivisional involvement
of DBT Scientists made the
SBIRI a symbol of unity for the
purpose, that is highly significant
in the government set up. Biotech
Consortium India Ltd, New Delhi
has been the excellent management
system for SBIRI for these seven
years. The success of SBIRI is
credited to all these individuals,
private sector and public partners.
PROMOTING SBIRI
The foundation of success of a
scheme such as SBIRI rests, to a
very large extent, on the ability
of implementing team to ensure
that maximum possible targeted
stakeholders are aware of the
scheme and its various details. For
a country of India’s size, this is
easier said than done and requires
a serious and focused outreach
and promotional effort. SBIRI
team of DBT made all its efforts
to reach out to potential players
mainly through two major ways
that were un-attempted earlier in
any of the DBT’s activities; first
one is through print media (not
novel, but utility of its scope was
unique) like advertising the scheme
in local newspapers apart from
national dailies, by putting the Call
for Proposals on the prominent
and attractive cover page of science
magazines, putting the information
on web-sites of various Industry
Associations and the other way
was face-to-face interaction with
potential partners through a series
of road-shows and science-meetings
in various cities of India. Both
of these means have been proven
successful in its objective and are
being imitated for other programmes
in DBT.
As a coordinated
initiative, SBIRI has evoked a very
encouraging response from the
targeted institutions and has been
successful in bringing different
stakeholders from industry,
academia and the government on
a common platform to work for
faster growth of biotech sector in
India. By channelizing government
funding for R&D efforts in the
biotech sector, SBIRI has spurred
an increase in funds committed
for R&D initiatives by the private
sector as well. In fact, as the
statistics reveal, private sector
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has contributed more than the
government to projects initiated
under the SBIRI unbrella. In the 121
projects sanctioned till date, DBT’s
commitment has been Rs 192.84
crores of which only a small portion
of Rs. 27.28 crores is as grants-inaid
and the remaining of Rs 165.56
crores is in the form of soft loans.
Proponent private organizations
have committed an investment of Rs
211.54 crores.
About 50% of the projects
sanctioned are completed so far
and TSC had done a special review
to assess the results of seven years
of efforts put through SBIRI.
The projects in all the four major
sectors of biotechnology produced
amazing outcome. In agri-sector,
progress in transgenics remained the
focus. In healthcare, commendable
success in development of vaccine,
recombinant drugs, monoclonal
antibodies, diagnostics, biomarkers,
drug designing, tissue engineering
and various other areas has been
achieved. Industrial Processes &
Products sector moved ahead on
enzyme technologies, development
of value added products, drug
intermediates and platform
technologies for industrial products.
Instrumentation sector made its
SBIRI : Facts and Figures
Total number of Calls 20
First Call announced September, 2005.
Last Call announced September 2012 (open till 15th October, 2012).
Average number of proposals in each batch 50
Total number of proposals received 1052
Total number of organisations approached 595 (from 26 states).
Projects recommended by Apex Committee 202.
Projects sanctioned
New Milestones & New Achievements
Pioneered through SBIRI
PIGA CT the only product
Only CE Marking Available
Products evolve to
ROBIO EZ & EX
CE marking + Awaiting
accreditions for SFDA (China),
TGA (Australia), ANVISA (Brazil)
SBIRI
Spurring Innovation
Pioneered with PIGA, IO Solutions evolved
to create New application possibilities & a
whole New range of products!
NEW APPLICATIONS
• Biopsy
• FNAC
• RFA & Alcoholic
ablations
• Drainage procedures
• Drug Delivery
• Fiducial Marker
placement
• Pain Management
121 (some cases were withdrawn/closed for different reasons,
others are in pipeline for sanction)
Projects completed 57 (2 projects could not be implemented and were closed).
April 2012
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SBIRI
Spurring Innovation
SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS OF SBIRI
S.
No.
ORGANISATION THEME DESCRIPTION
1 M/s Bioseed Research India Pvt Abiotic Stress Tolerant Transgenic Development of Transgenic Drought Tolerant Genotypes of
Ltd, Hyderabad
Crops
Rice, Corn & Cotton and Transgenic Salinity Tolerant Rice
Hybrids (Two projects)
2 M/s Nuziveedu Seeds Pvt Ltd, Drought Tolerant Transgenic Maize Stacking of Candidate Genes Addressing Different Moisture
Pochampally
Stress Resistance Strategies in Maize
3 M/s Rasi Seeds Pvt Ltd, Attur Viral Resistant Transgenic Cassava Transgenic Cassava Production with Genes Conferring
Resistance to Indian Cassava Mosaic Virus Disease
4 M/s Bejo Sheetal Seeds Pvt Ltd, Disease Resistant Transgenic Genetically Modified Vegetable Crops for Insect and Disease
Jalna
Vegetable Crops
Resistance
5 M/s Multiplex Bio-Tech Pvt Ltd, Biopesticides –
Enhancing Effectiveness of Nucleopolyhedro Viruses in
Bangalore
Helimar & Spodomar
Commercially Produced HaNPV and SlNPV
6 M/s Millennium Exports, Products From
Pet Animal Food, Fish Leather and Other Marine
Chennai
Fish Waste
Biotechnology Products From Fish Waste
7 M/s Oriental Aquamarine Biotech Nitrifying
Design Modification and Commercialization of Nitrifying
India Pvt Ltd, Coimbatore Bioreactors
Bioreactors
8 M/s Bharat Biotech International Rotavirus Vaccine – Rotavac Development and Standardization of Manufacturing and
Ltd, Hyderabad
Testing of Neonatal Rotavirus Vaccine
9 M/s Bharat Serums and Vaccines Recombinant Follicle
Clinical Development and Commercial Manufacturing of
Ltd, Mumbai
Stimulating Hormone – Foligraf Recombinant Follicle Stimulating Hormone
10 M/s Virchow Biotech Pvt Ltd, Recombinant Drugs –
Development of Recombinant Uricase for Treatment of
Hyderabad
Tuly & Defuse
Tumor Lysis Syndrome and Recombinant Fuzeon for
Treatment of AIDS (Two projects)
11 M/s Imgenex India Pvt Ltd, Osteoclast Inhibitory Peptide Nanotechnology Based Delivery of Peptide Inhibitors for the
Bhubaneswar
Treatment of Osteoporosis
12 M/s Mediclone Biotech Pvt Ltd, Monoclonal Antibodies for Health Production of Monoclonal Antibodies for RBC Phenotyping
Chennai
Care
and Treatment of Snakebites (Two projects)
13 M/s Bhat Bio-tech India Pvt Ltd, Malaria Diagnostic
HRP-II/ p-LDH Based Diagnostic Kits for the Differential
Bangalore
Kit– Malariscan
Detection of Malarial Parasites
14 M/s Yashraj Biotechnology Ltd, Biomarkers for Cancer Development of Immunoassays for Prostate and Breast
Navi Mumbai
Cancers Through Molecular Characterization of Markers
15 M/s Oxygen Healthcare Research Histamine Receptor Antagonists Design and Development of H3 and other GPC Receptor
Pvt. Ltd, Ahmedabad
Ligands for Various Therapeutic Applications
16 M/s Lead Invent Technology Pvt Insilico Drug Designing for Computational Design and Development of Inhibitors for
Ltd, New Delhi
Tuberculosis
Treatment of Tuberculosis
17 M/s Relisys Medical Devices Ltd, Drug Eluting Stents Manufacture and Clinical Evaluation of Non-Polymeric Drug
Hyderabad
Eluting Stent
18 M/s Frontier Lifeline Pvt Ltd, Xenografts and Homografts Tissue Engineering of Homologous Natural Biomaterial for
Chennai
Clinical Use
19 M/s Healthline Pvt Ltd, Bangalore Serifilm as Bioactive Wound Development and Commercialization of Silk Protein Blend
Dressing
Film for Burn Wound Management
20 M/s Varuna Biocell Pvt Ltd, Dextranase for Sugar Industry – Indigenous Production of Dextranase Using SSF Technique
Varanasi
Dextrasol
21 M/s Maps Enzymes Ltd,
Phytase For Aquaculture & Development of a Cost Effective Process for Phytase
Ahmedabad
Poultry – Palkofeed
Production and its Application Studies
22 M/s Pelican Biotech & Chemical Value Added Products – Pelrich Novel Methods of Isolation of Biochemicals from Crustacean
Labs, Kuthiathode
Exoskeleton
23 M/s T. Stanes & Co. Ltd,
Antihyper-Lipidemic Formulations– Development of Lipid Lowering Phytoformulations
Coimbatore
LipiChek
24 M/s Bharavi Laboratories (P) Drug Intermediates From Biomass Processes for Manufacture of (S)-3-Hydroxybutyrolactone
Ltd, Bangalore
From Biomass and (S)-4-Hydroxy-2-pyrrolidinone Therefrom
25 M/s India Pesticides Ltd,
Lucknow
Synthetic Curcumin Large Scale Production of Curcumin-Piperoyl Conjugates
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April 2012
SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS OF SBIRI
SBIRI
Spurring Innovation
S.
No.
ORGANISATION THEME DESCRIPTION
26 M/s Navya Biologicals Pvt Ltd, Expression Systems for
Development of Platform for Production of Complex Peptides
Bangalore
Heterologous Proteins
and Proteins
27 M/s EnZene Biosciences Pvt Ltd, Silkworm Expression System Expression of Peptidyl Amidase and Aprotinin in Baculoviral
Bangalore
Systems and Development of Silkworm as a Bioreactor
28 M/s ExCel Matrix Biological 3D Cell
Novel Tissue Engineering and Three Dimensional Cell
Devices (P) Ltd, Hyderabad Culture Wares
Culture Technology
29 M/s Perfint Healthcare Pvt Ltd, Targeting System For CT Guided Commercialization of PIGA – Tool Positioner for Use in
Chennai
Procedures
Image Guided Interventional Procedures
30 M/s Span Diagnostics Ltd, Surat Clinical Chemistry Analyzer – Manufacturing and Commercialization of a Low Cost and
Autochem Ingenious
Reliable Clinical Chemistry Analyzer
31 M/s Bigtec labs, Bangalore Diagnosis of
Development of MEMS Based Sensor for Neutrophil
Acute Kidney Injury
Gelatinase Associated Lipocalin
32 M/s Scigenics Biotech Pvt Ltd, Multi Deck Shaker Research, Design, Engineer and Manufacture Multi Deck
Chennai
Shaker
33 M/s Bangalore Biotech Labs Pvt. Microcarrier Culture With Perfusion Development of Platform Technology for Culture of Adherent
Ltd., Bangalore
Technology
Cells on Microcarriers
34 M/s Customised Technologies Automated Dispensing System – Development of Automated Bio-instruments viz. Dispensing
Pvt Ltd, Bangalore
Rapidec
System and Cell Counter
BIOTECH NEWS
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SBIRI
Spurring Innovation
noticeable impact in medical devices
as well as lab equipment. Of the
55 projects reviewed by TSC for
its outcome, 37 have done very
well (the list is given in Table 1). In
addition to prominent outcomes in
the form of some products that are
in the market and some promising
research leads that have potential for
commercialization, these projects
generated IP to Indian origin and
several patents have been filed on
the basis of research under these
37 SBIRI projects. The outcome
and other achievements of SBIRI
supported projects are profiled in
DBT’s publication “SBIRI – Pooling
Skills I Creating Possibilities”
released on 15th October, 2012
during the Industry Meet organized
by DBT-BIRAC. During this
Industry Meet, five companies
received “DBT-BIRAC Innovation
SBIRI : FUNDING STRUCTURE
Phase I : High risk, innovative, early stage, proof of concept, lab/ pilot level research
Project Cost
Grants-in-aid
Support in the form of
Soft Loan (interest free)
Upto Rs. 25 lakhs 80% of the project cost –––
Rs. 25 lakhs to Rs. 100
lakhs
50% of the project cost
(minimum Rs. 20 lakhs and
maximum Rs. 50 lakhs)
Beyond Rs. 100 lakhs Rs. 50 lakhs
–––
Upto 50% of the amount by which the
total project cost exceeds Rs. 100 lakhs
(maximum Rs. 50 lakhs)
Phase II : Late development and commercialization of innovative research leads
Loan amount Interest Rate (simple)
Upto Rs. 100 lakhs 1%
Beyond Rs. 100 lakhs and upto Rs. 10 crores 2%
The public institution partner, if any, in the project is eligible for Grants-in-aid
Awards”. Of those, four companies
are recipients of SBIRI support
and have completed their projects
with remarkable success. Bioseed
Research India Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad
worked on development of abiotic
stress tolerant transgenic crops;
Pelican Biotech & Chemicals Labs,
Kuthiathode was successful in
getting value added products from
shrimp industry waste as well as
developing a zero pollution method
for treatment of effluent; Navya
Biologicals Pvt Ltd, Bangalore has
successfully developed a platform
technology for production of
complex peptides and proteins and
Perfint Healthcare Pvt Ltd, Chennai
has developed and commercialized
its two products viz ROBIO EX &
ROBIO EZ - targeting systems for
CT guided procedures. These four
companies and their projects are
Idea to Lab/
Pilot level
Development
Evaluation Criteria
Signifi cance
Approach
Innovation
Expertise
Facilities
Lab to End User
Evaluation Criteria
Same as in Phase I
Preliminary leads
Feasibility
listed at serial number 1, 22, 26 and
29 respectively in Table 1. Many
congratulations to them. They
symbolize the quality and high merit
of science being supported through
SBIRI in private sector.
Being a Nodal Officer
for SBIRI, these seven years have
been a great learning experience
for me. SBIRI - a DBT’s pioneer
PPP initiative has established that
innovative ways are needed to
implement such schemes which are
meant for innovation. Togetherness
among all the stakeholders made the
SBIRI so successful. However, some
issues and concerns still remain
to be addressed and the journey
will go on. Your feedback on
“SBIRI – Pooling Skills I Creating
Possibilities” will help us to do
better.
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