In a significant global initiative, the IIT Alumni Council on Saturday announced world’s first and largest Engineered Biomolecule Mega Incubator (EBMI) —involving 2.5 million square feet area—to align start-ups, other incubators and accelerators in India's offensive against Covid-19.
The ambitious project involves setting up of Biosafety Level-3 (BSL3) laboratory in the National Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Kalina Campus of University of Mumbai, a captive 100,000 sq. ft pilot plant facility for biomolecule manufacturing in the National Capital Region (NCR), a mega Incubator to support MegaLab and MegaTx (to be part funded by MegaFund ), Rs 500 crore direct investment envisaged in Phase 1 and Rs 10,000 crore-plus ecosystem investment.
As part of the EBMI project, NCR will be developed as a global hub for Biologics manufacturing.
The proposed EBMI will have direct access to over 30,000 PhDs through Top Institutes of Excellence” Network (TieNet) and a virtual presence in every smartphone. Engineered biomolecules is expected to play a key role in molecular diagnostics, genetic testing as well as biotherapeutics, besides a host of applications in sectors varying from water treatment and agriculture to advanced genetics.
Announcing the EBMI initiative, IIT Alumni Council President Ravi Sharma said that his organisation was playing a lead role in strengthening the entire Covid ecosystem - from diagnostic testing to biotherapeutic treatment.
“Given that over 70% of a Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) or Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) test kit in value terms are biomolecules, we understand the need and urgency of focusing on this domain. Most advanced biotherapeutic drugs from insulin to interferon to plasma antibodies are biomolecules. We believe that we can influence a very substantial cost and price reduction in bio-therapeutics,” Sharma said.
“The ultimate goal of the IIT Alumni Council is to make sure that every person in India is able to afford genetic tests like Covid19 and biotherapeutic treatment. This is the only way to make India healthy and safe in the face of feared antibiotic resistance and future pandemics” IIT Alumni Council chief said.
The IIT Alumni Council is an autonomous and independent global body of alumni of all the twenty-three IITs and partnering TieNet. TieNet founder members include Mumbai University and ICT Mumbai.
“The MegaIncubator will be global and aspires to reach out to any technocrat startup promoter anywhere in the world that is pursuing deep technology in the Biomolecule domain. Using a mobile app, it would be possible to onboard an incubatee virtually at the speed of thought,” Mr Hemant Gupta, an IIT alumnus MD of Zone Startups India – an institutional partner of EBMI, said.
“The MegaIncubator is architected smartly, stitching together existing cutting edge infrastructure to create an end-to-end phygital support system for aspiring Biomolecule start-ups, thereby accelerating the time to market manifold.” Gupta said.
“A dedicated global team has been working 24/7 on the EBMI since March end. We would like to thank Hyde Consulting, Grant Thornton and the tens of volunteers who have helped to take EBMI from thought to Project in less than 100 days. EBMI has signed MoUs with several partner organisations in May 2020 including Mumbai University. Detailed blueprints have been drawn up and the laboratories are in various phases of execution,” Dr Samir Kulkarni, Director of Innovation and National Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, University of Mumbai, said.
“We have also received over twenty incubatee proposals to deliver products such as viral lysis solution, viral transport medium, Lyophilized room temperature stable, RT-PCR kits, plasma derived immunoglobulins (IVIG), antibody libraries to develop and manufacture recombinant therapeutic antibodies etc. We are also looking at genetic cloning of nature derived peptides and have studied major global training centers for biologics development and manufacturing,” Dr Kulkarni said.
According to Dr Kulkarni, it is the EBMI team that worked round the clock to help deliver initiatives like MegaLab and MegaTx. EBMI team has also played a key role in the elimination of Chinese systems and software from both MegaLab and MegaTx”.