National Biopharma Mission | 14 Mar 2020

  • The National Biopharma Mission (NBM) is an industry-academia collaborative mission for accelerating biopharmaceutical development in the country.
  • It was launched in 2017 at a total cost of Rs 1500 crore and is 50% co-funded by World Bank loan.
  • It is being implemented by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).
    • BIRAC is a Public Sector Enterprise, set up by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT).
  • The oversight to the mission activities is provided by the inter-ministerial Steering Committee chaired by the Secretary-DBT (Ministry of Science & Technology).
  • The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) chaired by an eminent scientist provides scientific leadership to the mission drawing upon global expertise.
  • Under this Mission, the Government has launched Innovate in India (i3) programme to create an enabling ecosystem to promote entrepreneurship and indigenous manufacturing in the biopharma sector.
  • It has a focus on following four verticals:
    • Development of product leads for Vaccines , Biosimilars and Medical Devices that are relevant to the public health need by focussing on managed partnerships.
    • Upgradation of shared infrastructure facilities and establishing them as centres of product discovery/discovery validations and manufacturing.
    • Developing human capital by providing specific training.
    • Developing technology transfer offices to help enhance industry academia inter-linkages.

Source: PIB