National Biopharma Mission | 14 Mar 2020

The National Biopharma Mission (NBM) is an industry-academia collaborative mission for accelerating biopharmaceutical development in the country.
It was launched in 2017 at a total cost of Rs 1500 crore and is 50% co-funded by World Bank loan.
It is being implemented by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).
- BIRAC is a Public Sector Enterprise, set up by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT).
The oversight to the mission activities is provided by the inter-ministerial Steering Committee chaired by the Secretary-DBT (Ministry of Science & Technology).
The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) chaired by an eminent scientist provides scientific leadership to the mission drawing upon global expertise.
Under this Mission, the Government has launched Innovate in India (i3) programme to create an enabling ecosystem to promote entrepreneurship and indigenous manufacturing in the biopharma sector.
It has a focus on following four verticals:
- Development of product leads for Vaccines , Biosimilars and Medical Devices that are relevant to the public health need by focussing on managed partnerships.
- Upgradation of shared infrastructure facilities and establishing them as centres of product discovery/discovery validations and manufacturing.
- Developing human capital by providing specific training.
- Developing technology transfer offices to help enhance industry academia inter-linkages.