HYDERABAD: It and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Monday announced that the State government is partnering with US-based Cytiva to create a B-Hub (Biopharma Hub) in order to develop biopharmaceutical medicines. Giving an overview of the future of Hyderabad’s life sciences sector, while presenting the Genome Valley Excellence Award to Bharat Biotech, he said: “The State government is partnering with Cytiva to establish a biopharma scale up facility called B-Hub.
As you all know that eight of the 10 top selling medicines are biopharmaceuticals.”“While there exist formidable capabilities in chemical drugs in the country, B-Hub will help Telangana and India in accelerating in this sector,” he added.
‘Life sciences attracted Rs 3,700 cr investments’
While highlighting Hyderabad’s contribution to the life sciences sector, Rama Rao also said that Hyderabad-based Aurobindo Pharma is building a vaccine facility in the city which will be able to manufacture 450 million doses annually.“Life sciences sector has attracted investments of up to Rs 3,700 crore, creating employment opportunities for 17,000 people,” he said.
“Hyderabad-based Sai Life Sciences inaugurated its new facility in Genome Valley with an investment of Rs 400 core. The new campus will play a pivotal role in discovery of new drugs,” he added.He also informed that Syngene, whose campus was inaugurated last year during BioAsia, has increased its work force from 100 to 225 and will soon lease its third building.
“GVK Bio is also expanding rapidly and will add 600 new jobs in Hyderabad. Further, Granules India will also be investing Rs 400 crore in its new facility with a capacity to produce 10 billion units of finished doses,” the Minister said. He further added that Switzerland-based Ferring Pharmaceuticals started their operations last year, and Canada-based Jamp Pharma’s facility would be inaugurated next month.
Rama Rao also said the State government is also looking to further the medical devices sector and there are 40 companies in the MedTech Park in Rangareddy district. “We are also working on Digital Medicine Hub, Institute for Cell and Gene Therapy, Flow Chemistry Hub and so on,” he added. While accepting the award, Bharat Biotech Managing Director Krishna Ella said 65 per cent of the Indian vaccine market is produced in Hyderabad. “In future, vaccines for pandemic will come only from Hyderabad. No other city produces around 65 per cent vaccine of the market,” he said.