Incubators accelerate entrepreneurial spirit

India is expected to have more than 20 biotech incubators by 2010. This will help start-ups to focus on their activities.

Polyclone Bioservices, which started operations in May 2005 with investments from founders and close associates, as a bioinformatics and consulting services company, was amongst the earliest companies in India to incubate its lab from a university laboratory. "We were the first company to do so at the UAS, Dharwad, which now has other successful incubatees like Navya Biotech," said Naveen Kulkarni, founder and CEO, Polyclone. It set up a cancer-specific commercial microarray lab at the campus.

"Our experience at the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) Dharwad incubation facility has been excellent. The management and scientists at the IABT (Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology), where the incubator facility is housed, have been most cooperative and eager to help. The facility also makes it easy for us to reach out to bright PhD students who work with us on various projects," added Sanjay Bettadpura, chief business officer, Polyclone Bioservices.

The incubator facility has helped the company save costs tremendously on lab infrastructure and space. "It could have been a big burden for a start-up. More importantly, the facility has helped us with a nurturing environment where our scientists can learn, interact and grow," added Kulkarni. "Last but not the least, being at the UAS, Dharwad campus also added to the credibility of our company due to the University's strong brand name," said Bettadpura.

Another new entrant into the Indian biotech market, Navya Biologicals too decided to go to the UAS Dharwad facility. "Most Indian entrepreneurs like us at Navya set out with dreams, competence, will-to-do and little or no money in the pockets. And biotech being a capital-intensive business with long-gestation periods, it is a challenge for all entrepreneurs like us. Therefore an incubator like the one in Dharwad lets us focus on the 'risk' of generating, validating and developing ideas, technologies, products at the beginning rather than divert energy on building the infrastructure," said Vinay Konaje, co-founder, Navya. Having successfully navigated the initial "corridor of uncertainty", Navya is now dreaming big, and in the process of expanding, setting up its own infrastructure and facilities. Hubli-Dharwad lets us realize our dream," added Vinay Konaje.

These are neither isolated examples of start-up companies daring to operate out of an incubation center or the trend confined to a specific region in the country. There have been over three dozen companies in the country which have started from incubated facilities. These companies, both local and global, are spread across different sectors, regions, and on various campuses for varied reasons.

Taher Abbasi, CEO, Cellworks Group Inc., an incubatee at Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biology (IBAB), Bangalore pointed out, "One of the hurdles in getting a start-up venture off the ground in Bangalore is infrastructure and logistics. The incubation of Cellworks at IBAB at its inception enabled us to focus completely on technology development. In addition to providing us with the infrastructure, which is comparable to any global standards, IBAB provided us the mentorship. Its high-caliber management team was of immense value to us." Cellworks Group, a systems biology company, which started in the IBAB incubator in July 2005 has 65 employees and five customers already.

Sandeep Bedge, an incubatee of MITCON Agri Biotechnology Incubator since 2006, has now started marketing the biofertilizer products by availing the production infrastructure facility of the incubator. He is marketing the products in Sangli district of Maharashtra. He has also undergone the Entrepreneurship Development Program in Biotechnology organized by the incubator. "I am planning to start small unit of biofertilizer manufacturing," said Bedge.

With a large number of multinational biotech and biopharma companies initiating their R&D and manufacturing operations in India, the demand for biotech incubators has increased tremendously. Companies have realized the benefits provided by these business incubators and have been relocating their facilities to the parks and other university campuses. Some of the leading biotech parks with excellent incubation centers include Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park, Hyderabad, ICICI Knowledge Park, Hyderabad, TICEL Bio Park, Chennai, International Biotech Park, Hinjewadi, Pune and KINFRA Biotech Parks, Kochi.