Hyderabad: Rs 5.25 crore DST grant for AIC at CCMB

Hyderabad: The Atal Incubation Centre at Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (AIC-CCMB), here, has been awarded the NIDHI-Seed Support System (NIDHI-SSS) grant of Rs 5.25 crore by the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB), Department of Science and Technology (DST).

AIC-CCMB has successfully supported 40-plus life science start-ups in the last three years, all working in the areas of human and animal health as well as industrial biotechnology. Start-ups at AIC-CCMB played a pivotal role in developing Covid-19 solutions for diagnostic, therapeutics and food supplements.

"Life-sciences is a very capital-intensive field, especially because the development time is longer than any other sector. The time and money required for various validation and regulatory clearances for even bringing a product to the market puts a huge pressure of the entrepreneur. In the past three years of our operation, we have seen many life-sciences start-ups struggling to raise funds just to stay afloat.

The NIDHI-SSS grant will support the 'productisation' efforts of the start-ups and ensure that their leads reach the market. We hope that this grant will also promote interest among the ecosystem to take leads generated by CCMB scientists for translation. ", says Dr N Madhusudhana Rao, Chief Executive Officer, AIC-CCMB.

"It is very important that we set structures for funding the deep tech start-ups such as in life sciences. Their requirements are very different from those in IT. It is a very welcome step that NSTEDB sees the importance of this, and has launched the NIDHI-SSS. At CCMB, we are very hopeful that this will motivate many companies to work with us at AIC-CCMB. This will also help to bridge the much lacking communication between academic researchers and industries", says Dr. Rakesh Mishra, the CCMB director.

"Funding has always been a stumbling block for start-ups during the initial phases. DST through NIDHI seed support initiative is attempting to bridge the gap by providing hassle free financial support. Emerging incubators like AIC-CCMB are now empowered with DST's NIDHI SSS to further harness the true potential of Science, Technology and Innovation driven by new age innovators, entrepreneurs and start-ups," said Dr Anita Gupta, head, NSTEDB.