HYDERABAD: Telangana government announced setting up of B-Hub, a scale-up manufacturing facility for biopharma companies at Genome Valley, Hyderabad. The proposed B-Hub facility, with an estimated project cost of Rs 60 Crore, will be set up through a public-private partnership at Genome Valley.
It's a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, aimed at providing much-needed support to the biopharma research and development activities, featuring a scale-up manufacturing facility along with a turnkey incubator, lab space module at GLP grade spreading over a built-up area of 40,000 sq.ft. This end-to-end biopharma scale-up manufacturing facility will give domestic companies the required impetus here on par with Korea, China and France who have taken lead in biopharma innovation.
“With Indian companies aggressively embarking on the global biosimilars opportunity, a Biopharma scale-up facility will help them leapfrog in their endeavour while reducing the time to market. The inadequacy of scale-up infrastructure and funding is pushing cream of biopharma ventures to re-domicile themselves in different parts of the world."
''Hyderabad being the Life Sciences capital of the country, we have taken the lead by conceptualizing B-Hub, a biopharma scale-up lab with separate areas for cell-line development, clone selection, process development and small-scale production (100L) for pre-clinical studies."
"Companies that are in early-stage clinical development, but lack the requisite expertise and resources to navigate the complexities associated with business planning, cell development, risk assessment and others can leverage B-Hub facility to help break down roadblocks and commercially succeed,” said Industries Minister KT Rama Rao, after announcing the launch.
First-of-its-kind web portal launched
Minister K T Rama Rao on Tuesday launched a web portal for the life sciences sector, aimed at making an interface between the government, industries, research institutions and start-ups. Launching the portal, Rao said, “The interface will help map competencies and dole out tailor-made policies to stakeholders. It would also help industries find investors or business partners, and create a network for sharing information on govt initiatives.” The initiative is also expected to enhance interaction between various sectors, through more industry-academia partnerships, increased awareness of services offered by companies, and access to infrastructural facilities, officials said.