With an aim to augment innovation and product development in biomedical areas, the BRICS Biomed Cooperation has decided that BRICS Biomed Centre in India will be established in Kanyakumari, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi by 2025.
Addressing the country seminar ‘BRICS-Biomed Consortium: The First Results and Prospects of Future Development’ at the BRICS Trade Fair, S G Prakash Vincent, Chairman Associate BRICS-Biomed (India- Academic), said the aim of the consortium is to provide affordable and novel medicines. There are global opportunities in Biomed and it will witness an investment of 5 billion dollars and 50 billion dollars returns are expected between 2015 and 2021.
Shamil Akhmedov, Chairman of the BRICS-Biomed, Cardiology Research Institute, Tomsk NRMC, Tomshk, Russia, said the main aim of creation of the BRICS-Biomed Consortium is the development of new biomedical technologies for diagnosis and treatment of human diseases, development of domestic demand and export of biotech products, creation of technological base for new biotech areas of industrial sector.
Prof Akhmedov said the objectives of the consortium were promotion of expertise on innovative projects with respect to the technological feasibility and commercial potential of research and development; conductance of marketing studies, accumulation of information on market demands in particular
innovative technological solutions; preparation of proposals for The New Development Bank on possible financing of particular innovative projects.He added that accumulation of biomedical projects from nine Federal Districts of the Russian Federation and other BRICS countries is ongoing for creation of the international database and for search for co-financing of the proposed projects.
Speaking about BRICS Biomed Informatics Network, Prof Moni Madaswamy, Program Director, Centre for Agricultural Informatics & e-Governance Research Studies, Shobhit University, said BRICS has about 6573 universities. Strategies of Networking of Biomedical Scientists and Biomedical Projects in BRICS and strategies of electronic operations of BRICS Biomed projects were needed.
He said information security is an important aspect in this area and the National Knowledge Network of the local country needed to be connected with the Biomed consortium. He added that a website and working groups could be set up for sharing of knowledge.
Harpreet Sandhu of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Government of India, said the ICMR was working in line with the priority of the nation which was to focus on non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart diseases. ICMR has come up with the Health Technology Assessment Board, which would review standards for medicines, vaccines and devices to determine the most cost-effective solutions.
Speaking on the issue of funding, Agnideep Mukherjee, Assistant Vice President, Life Sciences & IT Knowledge Banking, said India was witnessing a startup revolution and to capitalize the potential of innovators and entrepreneurs a vibrant financial ecosystem was essential. Getting funding is a crucial element to flag off any start-up; there are various methods of funding that are popular in the start-up community such as traditional angel investors, venture capital, incubators, public investment (equity funding), financial assistance from government grants, business loans from banks, mergers and acquisitions and corporate partnering.
