Focused research organization Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) in India has selected 8 initial startups to fund as part of the first tranche of the $220 million Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) fund announced by India’s federal government in February this year
BIRAC received nearly 200 applications after it announced the first call for proposals, according to departing Managing Director Dr Jitendra Kumar. BIRAC has built a nationwide innovation ecosystem comprising more than 100 bio-incubation centers, over one million square feet of incubation space. The fund will support technologies from TRL 4 (Laboratory Validation) to TRL 9 (Successful Operations) through equity, convertible instruments and long-term debt.
I have visited one of the most prominent incubation centers located in Yelahanka, Bangalore (not far from the site of former Larsen & Toubro factory where my first professional job in India was located). The Center for Cellular and Molecular Platforms, C-CAMP, has a stellar record of incubating companies that have entered global markets
The majority of applicants are working in healthcare, including medical devices, new drugs and therapies, followed by bioenergy and agriculture. The committees has screened only 25 percent of the applications so far. BIRAC expect to award a total of as many as 25 startups from this round. 12.5 percent acceptance rate is high by global standards
The total RDI fund across all industries is $11 billion. India’s Union Minister Jitendra Singh was frank when he announced this allocation. Singh said India’s biotechnology sector had moved from policy hesitation to policy. He said biotechnology would drive the country’s next phase of industrial growth, similar to the role information technology played in earlier decades, with future advances shaped by biotech innovation, advanced manufacturing and new-age entrepreneurship. The current initiative, he added, aimed to strengthen India’s ability not only to generate ideas but also to commercialize them.
Sectetary of Biotechnology Rajesh Gokhale said the RDI Fund had been structured to support long-gestation, high-risk research requiring patient capital and advanced infrastructure. He said the fund would support the development of next-generation products across biopharmaceuticals, bio-industrial manufacturing, bioenergy, the blue economy and biocomputation, with the objective of translating research into scalable industrial outcomes.
If you want to find out how you can profit from India’s biotech ecosystem, meet me at BIO2026 . If you are registered for partnering at BIO 2026 from June 22-25, visit https://partner.bio.org/conference/86/search/70089?isShared=true to send me a meeting request.
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