Hyderabad: Telangana is aiming to achieve $50 billion in cluster revenues (and $100 billion ecosystem valuation) by 2030, and believes that the sector would need to boost its current growth level of around 12 percent per annum to around 15 percent per annum.
As per the “Telangana Lifesciences: Vision 2030” report unveiled by Telangana Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Tuesday, besides being a life sciences manufacturing hub, the industry in Telangana would have to garner international relevance as a pre-eminent innovation hub. The State will look at attracting not just manufacturing facilities, but also the R&D wings of leading pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, and medical devices companies.
In the same stead, the sector could also aim to realize the commercialization of at least one billion-dollar molecule or drug internationally to showcase the State’s innovative prowess.
India suffers from a huge disease burden, leading the number of deaths globally due to numerous communicable (TB, hepatitis, dengue, etc.), neo-natal and non- communicable diseases (cancer, diabetes, hypertension, etc.).
Further, a commitment to boost clinical research in the State via infrastructure upgrades and training programs could help establish pre-eminence as the leading clinical research destination in India.
Scale-up infrastructure for startups
Hyderabad has several life sciences startups, ranging from pure-play innovative drug discovery to genomics. To establish the city’s pre-eminence as the leading life sciences innovation hub in India and Asia, the report recognizes that it is important to develop a local ecosystem that helps accelerate the journey from the product development stage to the commercialization stage.
While the Government of Telangana is undertaking initiatives such as Biopharma Hub (B-Hub) and Diagnostic Hub (D-Hub), more of such initiatives could be undertaken by the Government for the life sciences startups. This could be done by establishing state-of-the-art labs, testing equipment, and pilot plants to aid in prototype manufacturing and ramping-up production for clinical trials.
Also identifying the critical services required for conducting clinical trials and investing towards developing self-sufficiency in these capabilities, supporting the critical ancillary industries necessary to catalyze manufacturing activity in the State will be key.
Augment current funding sources
The State government has made conscious efforts to spur innovation locally. However, the availability of funding in Hyderabad is still lesser when compared to other innovation hubs like Bengaluru, which has the largest number of life sciences companies to have raised funds via seed, angel, VC, or private investors.
Various stakeholders have advised the creation of a corpus with private partnerships for performing startups by pledging public seed investments for next-level and big-ticket rounds. A comprehensive incentive package could be provided to private investors for partial shielding against any downfall, the vision report pointed out.
Technology sharing and transfer linkages
The government could consider regularly triggering and fostering a self-sustaining collaborative spirit in Telangana’s academic and industrial circles by instituting the Telangana Council for Research, Science, and Technology (T-CREST), which will involve the industry and academia, to outline the vision (long-term and short-term goals) and identify priority areas, establishing formal Technology Transfer Offices for universities and colleges.
Clinical research
While clinical research was on an uptick in India a decade ago, lack of regulatory clarity & operational challenges has depressed the sector. To ensure Telangana emerges as a foremost cluster for clinical research in India and the world, with a focus on not just clinical trials but other growing sectors like pharmacovigilance as well, the State is looking for several initiatives.
Importantly, while private hospitals are already operating on thin margins and the amount of time and resources needed for conducting a world-class clinical trial program would not be particularly attractive for them, the government could consider stepping in. The State could first identify and designate public hospitals that could be established as pre-eminent clinical trial venues in the state.
Also, Telangana can liaise with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to streamline the regulatory environment for clinical trials by empowering the CDSCO office in Hyderabad with decision making authority, expansion of vaccine testing facilities by enabling setup of additional CDSCO approved lab infrastructure in Telangana and increasing regulatory capacity by enabling expansion of training facilities.
