In addition to the above mentioned parks, the government has earmarked an area of 200 acres for Agri Science Park at the campus of International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). It comprises an Agri Business Incubator, a Hybrid Seeds Consortium, and SAT Ecoventure. The center has the facility for testing aflatoxin contamination in food crops. The center has collaborations with Avesthagen and the Suri Sehgal Foundation. Four companies have joined the Agri-Business Incubator to incubate technologies. These being Rusni Distilleries for the production of ethanol from sweet sorghum; Bioseed Research Ltd for the development of transgenic cotton; Seed Works Ltd for the development of transgenic cotton and vegetables; and Sessler Tom and Hyglass for the development of fermentor and agricultural implements.

The Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation has set up a biotechnology incubation center at the Kinfra Biotech Park at Kalamassery near Kochi with assistance from the Union Government through DBT. The center houses common equipment and instrument facilities like greenhouse and hardening facilities, tissue culture facilities, analytical laboratories, extraction facilities and patent facilitation center. A fully furnished research and development facility will be made available on lease to the industry at the incubation center.

Uttar Pradesh is comparatively a new entrant to the biotech sector. And the setting up of the park has boosted biotech activity in the state. Lucknow Biotech Park, jointly setup by the DBT, DST, and Government of Uttar Pradesh in collaboration with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and the local universities and industries is a technology incubator plus model. The limited incubation space of approximately 20,000 sq.ft. available within the Park has been leased out to the entrepreneurs for innovative research and services. Companies like AquaBiochip Genomics India, Clintech Research India, Cognate BioServices, ACS Bioinformatics, and Sheela Biotech have been sharing the facility.

All these companies are utilizing the common facilities as per their requirements. Nextgen-Biofertilizers and Aroma Products have now expanded their activity outside the park in the biofertilizers business. Similarly the park has paved the way for launching of two new companies-Green Oil, New Delhi and UP Bioenergy Pvt Ltd, Lucknow outside the park in the area of biofuel energy.

Commenting on the success of the incubator, Dr PK Seth, CEO, Lucknow Biotech Park, said, "The incubator is envisioned to emerge as an integrated hub of companies pursuing biotech research. The facilities provided by the incubator would ensure that the tenants have the desired competitive edge in terms of availability of necessary equipment, manpower, intellectual property, etc."

The future plans of Park include construction of more ready-to-use laboratories keeping in view the high demand from new start-up companies, setting up of a commercial solvent extraction plant for obtaining lead molecules e.g., artemisinin from Artemisia annua in a public-private partnership mode said Dr Seth.

The MITCON's BT Incubator at Pune was set up within three months of taking possession of the premises at its current location including installation and commissioning of various plant and equipment, amenities, utilities, etc. MITCON's Incubator is the first Facility in Agri Biotech duly supported by DST and Asia-Pacific Center for Transfer of Technology.

"The objective is to develop new generation entrepreneurship in agri-biotechnology sector and also to commercialize the bio technologies," said Shekhu Kulkarni, chief executive, MITCON Biotech Park.

The incubator has conducted Entrepreneurship Development Programmes in agri-biotechnology in order to create awareness in the society and develop new generation entrepreneurship in agri-biotechnology sector, he added.

Bangalore Helix, the biotech cluster being planned by the Karnataka government also aims to support biotech units with common infrastructure. The biotech-incubator is coming up in an area of about 10-15 acres in the Biotech Park. It includes incubation facility, common instrumentation facility, business center, food courts, commercial and recreational area, high-end computing facility, pilot plant, medical sample repository, gene bank, auditorium, meeting halls, board rooms, etc. DBT has sanctioned an amount of Rs 15 crore for this center. This center is expected to run as a separate Strategic Business Unit (SBU) and also as a self sustainable and commercially viable project. Among other initiatives, a stem cell incubation center would also be set up in the city which would be the first of its kind in the country. The incubation center is expected to be operational by the mid of this year at Electronics City in Bangalore.

The biotech incubator at IBAB has been active since 2002. It has both a wet-lab biotech incubation facility and a dry-lab informatics set up. "The companies we have hosted to date are Cellworks Group, Simbiosys Biowares, BioCOS, the R&D unit of Novozymes and Microtest Innovations," said Dr Gayatri Saberwal, NEN leader, IBAB. We are able to help our incubatees with infrastructure, student manpower and the knowledge and connections of the institute's faculty, she added.

Dr Yathindra, Director, IBAB, expects Bangalore Helix to be ready by June 2008, and plans to expand the IBAB incubation facility by several fold once the institute shifts to the biotech park.

The Government of Gujarat intends to establish a biotech incubator with an estimated built-up space of 73,200 sq.ft. to serve the needs of the small and medium scale biotech companies based in Gujarat. The incubator would provide the critical support to start-up companies by incubating innovative business solutions into commercial ventures.

At present, the biotechnology incubation centers are at various stages of development in several states like Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. The biotechnology incubator at Uttar Pradesh and the center at Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park, Hyderabad, are already functional and are supported by DBT.

The biotech park and incubator in Punjab are yet to take shape. Commenting on the delay, Gurmeet Singh Bhatia, MD, Beckons Industries and CEO of the Punjab Biotech Park, said, "The biotech incubator is completely based on private investments and is not supported by the government in any way. The land has been allocated but the construction work has not yet started and is still at the planning phase."

The incubators set up in several biotech parks have been providing support to those young entrepreneurs who are not in a position to incur high capital expenditure in the biotech industry, but have the capabilities to develop and design new biotech products and processes by utilizing the biotech incubators and pilot level facilities. The Parks are setting up facilities keeping in view the needs and requirements of the regional industry and are being designed to enhance research and development driven and innovation based activities by creating state-of-the-art R&D facilities and fully operational labs. Most of them are being developed on a Public-Private Partnership model. In this model, the Park receives adequate funding from the Government, besides dedicated attention from well experienced private parties. Biotech Parks are increasingly setting up incubation facilities to encourage new entrepreneurial ventures in biotech and the access to specialized infrastructure at competitive cost.

DBT support

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has received proposals from various states for financial support to set up of biotechnology incubators and pilot facilities. Apart from the already approved biotech parks at Lucknow and Biotechnology Incubation Center (BTIC) at Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park, a few more biotech incubation and pilot plant facilities are being set up. These will be commissioned in Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. DBT's support to Lucknow and BTIC's facilities was to tune of Rs 12.06 crore and Rs 12.39 crore respectively.

The central government, through DBT, has been providing funding support in the form of grants-in-aid, budgetary allocation and incentives for the development of biotech incubators. The recently announced National Biotechnology Development Strategy talks about several initiatives aimed at promoting biotechnology parks. At least 10 biotech parks would be promoted and supported by DBT by 2010. DBT would also support creation of incubators in biotech parks promoted by a private promoter or through public-private partnership in the form of grant up to 30 percent of the total cost or up to 49 percent in the form of equity. In addition to the already existing centers, plans are on for another 6-8 new biotechnology incubators to be operational by 2010. The new incubation centers are expected to come up in Gujarat, Uttaranchal, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi. The parks that are eventually funded are likely to be functional within a period of two years.

Jahanara Parveen