Government brought out the National Biotechnology Development Strategy (2015-20), setting policies and goals for consolidating the country’s achievements in the sector; aiming to develop the sector into a $100 billion industry by 2025.
The Strategy was unveiled by Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, and YS Chowdary, Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, in the presence of Dr VijayRaghavan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology and many other persons related with the sector.
The policy was crafted in the context of rising importance of the sector globally in different areas. One such trend is the emergence of biologics in pharmaceuticals as large numbers of new drugs are invented on biological formulations. According to the present trends, biologic drugs, which are made from living organisms, are the fastest-growing segment of the drug market.
Many biologics are made from different natural sources-human, animal or microorganisms. In the western countries pharmaceutical firms are shifting from chemical designing of drugs to biologics. Given this, the future of biotechnology is very bright and a strategy is critical in utilizing the opportunities.
The Development Strategy aims to launch four Major Missions – Healthcare, Food and Nutrition, Clean Energy and Education.
Several large and small measures extending from development of human resource base in the sector to establishment of labs and research centres are envisaged in the strategy.
The strategy aims to create a Technology Development and Translation network across the country. This will be done by bringing collaboration between different research institutions working within the country as well as abroad. New clusters, biotech incubators, bio-coonect centres etc will be part of this network.
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