The National Biopharma Mission has been launched by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology on 30^th June 2017 in New Delhi. This is an Industry-Academia mission to accelerate biopharmaceutical development in India that has been approved by the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs in its meeting held on 17^th May, 2017. Further, as per the Cabinet approval,  this Mission for Accelerating Discovery Research to Early Development for Biopharmaceuticals – “Innovate in India (i3)” Empowering biotech entrepreneurs & accelerating inclusive innovation will be implemented at a total cost of Rs. 1500 crore for a period of five years and 50% of the grant will be arranged through the World Bank loan.

The following are the objectives of the Mission:

1. Development of products from leads that are at advanced stages in the product development lifecycle and relevant to the public health.
2. Strengthening and establishing shared infrastructurefacilities for both product discovery validation and manufacturing.
3. Developing human capital by providing specific training to address the critical skills gaps in researchers, nascent biotech companies across the product development value chain, including in business plan development and market penetration.
4. Creating and enhancing technology transfer and intellectual property management capacities and capabilities in public and private sector.

• The Mission Programme of Department of Biotechnology, will be implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) a Public Sector Undertaking of the Department. BIRAC as an umbrella Product Development Partnership (PDP) would facilitate this program by bringing together partners through existing frameworks for specific program goals and would facilitate this program by involving established organizations with relevant expertise in product development
• The programme will specifically focus on the development of new vaccines, bio-therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices to better address the rising burden of diseases in the country.
• It will also bring isolated centres of excellence together, enhance regional capabilities and strengthen the current bio-clusters network in terms of capacities as well as quantity and quality of output. 
• The programme will help deliver 6-10 new products in the next five years, create several dedicated facilities for next-generation skills.
• The program would aid in preparing India’s technological and product development capabilities in the biopharmaceutical sector to a level so that it is globally competitive.

More about i3:

• i3 is committed to addressing these gaps with a Mission to make India a hub for design and development of novel, affordable and effective biopharmaceutical products and solutions.
• The aim of the Mission is to “Enable and nurture an ecosystem for preparing India’s technological and product development capabilities in biopharmaceuticals to a level that will be globally competitive over the next decade, and transform the health standards of India’s population through affordable product development”
• As a flagship program of the Government of India in collaboration with World Bank, it promises to boost the growth curve for domestic biopharma in India by accelerating the translation of research concepts into viable products, supporting clinical validation, enabling sustainable networks for collaboration between industry and academia, and supporting entrepreneurial ecosystem amongst many others.
• The Mission will provide a holistic and integrated approach to strengthen and support the entire product development value chain for accelerating the research leads to product development.
• This will help not only in immediate product development addressing public health needs, but will also help to create an ecosystem which will facilitate development of a continuous pipeline of products.
• The Mission to be implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a Public Sector Undertaking of Department of Biotechnology will bring together expertise from national and international corridors to provide strategic guidance and direction to move promising solutions through the product development value chain.
• The program thereby stands unique in its approach as it becomes a cradle to innovate, co-create and co-facilitate scientific discoveries and offers young entrepreneurs an avenue to engage with the best in the industry.