The Union Cabinet today approved the setting up of "Biotechnology Industry Research
Assistance Council (BIRAC)" as 'not-for-profit' section 25 company with a vision to
stimulate, foster and enhance the strategic research and innovation capabilities of the Indian
biotech industry particularly SME's, to make India globally competitive in biotech innovation
and entrepreneurship and to create affordable products and services.
BIRAC will operate with a core budget for its regular activities and recurring expenses for
human resources and operational cost with an initial outlay of Rs.70 crore for two years.
BIRAC is being set up as a separate body for supporting product innovation and providing
required infrastructure and services at different stages of the value chain for promoting
innovation and product development.
BIRAC will provide funding/investment for
• Early and late stage, including Small Business Innovation Research Initiative (SBIRI),
Biotechnology Industry Partnership Programme (BIPP) and Ignition grant.
• Technology transfer and acquisition in national priority areas
• Technology development - incubators, parks
It will also provide support services such as IP facilitation, legal and contracts, regulatory and
clinical trail facilitation; mentoring and capacity building.
The company would function as the Government's, inter-phase agency for supporting
industry -academia interaction, which will service as a single window for the emerging
biotech industry through which they can acquire knowledge, access world class RandD
infrastructure, access rate limiting serious technologies and seek technical problem solving
help regulatory advice.
Background:
The proposal for setting up of an innovation support organisation - Biotechnology Industry
Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) will address the felt need in the government system
for providing a comprehensive enabling environment and technology related service package
to promote, nurture and support medium and high level innovation in biotech research. This
would be particularly useful for small and medium size companies, and also support and
facilitate creation of new start-ups.
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