The VC industry wants the government to develop a culture of early stage innovation funding in India to encourage biopharma research and development. While the government provides incentives, there are few policies around funding innovation. Experts note that every technological innovation needs a business model and risk mitigation plan. They stress the importance of industry and academia partnerships to encourage innovation and successful ventures in India.

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VC industry wants Govt. to develop early stage innovation funding culture in India for biopharma
Suja Nair Shirodkar, Mumbai, Friday, October 21, 2011, 08:00 Hrs [IST]
Biopharma industry has urged the government to be more pro active by developing a culture for early stage innovation funding in the country, if it wants to encourage innovation.
Industry insiders point out that though there are number of incentives by the government for the pharma and biotech companies, there are very few policies or schemes that relates
to funding which may motivate research and development (R&D) leading to innovation of new molecules.
Kapil Khandelwal, director at EquNev Capital, a leading investment banking and advisory services firm on investments in early stage bio-pharma innovations in India, stated that
the government needs to articulate the financial considerations and investments, so as to mitigate any risks of investing in partnering models for innovation.
He informed, “There is no cookie cutter approach to innovation and funding for a new technology that is being incubated. Once the idea has been germinated by the entrepreneur,
there are a host of supporting policies from the DBT on the public funding. On the private funding, there are a host of angel investors and venture capitalists. Moreover, there are
business and bio incubators across India that will support and nurture the innovations.”
However, highlighting some of the key issues that needs to be considered to kick start early-stage innovation funding in India, Khandelwal who is also a advisory board member –
Grant Scheme at Biotech Industry Research Assistance Programme, stressed that every technological innovation needs to focus on a business model and risk mitigation
differentials.
Stressing on the role of partnering played by the incubators in India in fostering the innovation he said that over 40 per cent of the incubations in India and abroad are over their
time lines to stand alone outside of their shelters.
He informed, “One of the critical short comings have been the ability of the incubators to provide the support required by the innovating companies and ventures. Most importantly,
while Indian innovation is attractive proposition for the investors in the West, it is the size and the scale and the cost of investing and managing the investments that is an issue.
The Western innovators would like to leverage India, put the lack of ideas on who and how to partner.”
Industry scholars stressed that one important factor that needs to be addressed urgently is to encourage the industry and academia partnering on the innovation. “The key
outcomes of the number of successful ventures coming out of such partnerships belie the immense potential which we have failed to create through enterprise value,” Khandelwal
pointed out.
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