The meeting was facilitated by the Department of IT, BT & S&T, Government of Karnataka. Delegations from Information Technology and Semiconductor industry and select technology startups too were present. Besides GoK officials, the meeting was attended by two senior bureaucrats, Mr Anil Agarwal additional secretary in Department of Industrial Promotion and Planning, Government of India, and Ms Shruti Singh, joint secretary in DPI.

In his opening remarks, Dr A V Ramana Reddy, additional Chief Secretary, Dept of IT-BT, GoK, informed that the state's GDP has crossed the $ 250 billion mark and the state’s BioEconomy contributed nearly 10% of it at $ 22.6 billion in the year 2020. The state aims for a 30% market share of the $ 1 trillion national Digital Economy by 2025. He said Karnataka was home to 13,000 tech startups and the largest number of unicorns (startups with market valuation of more than $1 billion) with 21 of Nation. 30+ unicorns.

ABLE President Mr Krishnan made a short presentation highlighting the strengths of India’s and Karnataka’s growing BioEconomy, showed how ABLE’s member companies were at the forefront of developing the vaccines against COVID-19 pandemic and their role in record breaking vaccination drive.

Mr Krishnan told the Minister that the industry was confident of achieving the national BioEconomy target of $ 150 billion before 2025. These are the areas with growth potential to achieve the target:

BIOPHARMA

• Biological Manufacturing
• Covid vaccines (200 crore+ doses) will add $6 billion
• Covid testing kits
• Covid Therapeutics

BIO AGRICULTURE

• Bio fertilizers, Bio stimulants, and Bio controls are the potential areas for growth.

INDUSTRIAL BIOTECH

• Biofuels
• Alternate Foods
• Technical textiles that provide protection against bacterial/viral infections

ABLE President said to make this happen faster, the government should support the industry in a big way with right policy measures, regulatory changes, appropriate fiscal incentives, removal of some tariff, non-tariff hurdles coming in the way.

He listed the key demands from the Biotech industry:

• Research based incentives for Biotech companies will boost R&D ecosystem and new drug development
• A new funding mechanisms to support growth stage funding for BT startups and incentivize VCs to invest ( BIRAC provides mainly proof of concept grants)
• ‘Most VC’s in India do not understand high science, hence don’t invest in bioscience startups’ says Dr Kiran Mazumdar Shaw in a recent interview!
• Speedy regulatory clearances (food & drug) will support commercialization of new innovations and contribute to faster growth of the segment
• It is imperative to re-look at our Biodiversity laws and make it industry friendly to attract more investments
• Import duty reduction in select segments for critical processing aids will make it viable for the industry and the Government to achieve their targets viz.. 2G Ethanol target.

ABLE delegate members got the opportunity to elaborate these issues and seek the minister’s support to formulate appropriate solutions by the various agencies of the Union government.

Minister Mr Piyush Goyal, listened intently, intervened during the presentations to seek clarifications, shared the insights for navigating these issues through the government system and promised to intervene wherever possible to help the industry.

He praised the efforts of the biotech industry in making our country self-sufficient in COVID-19 vaccines, developing diagnostic test kits in record time, and providing assistance with hundreds of innovative products and services. “ India’s tackling of COVID-19 epidemic is admired globally, thanks to the biotech industry,” Mr Goyal said.

He narrated his personal example and his family’s immense faith in opting for ABLE member company Bharat Biotech’s indigenous Covaxin. He recalled that his children had been taking various other Bharat Biotech vaccines from childhood and there was no question of not opting for any other Covid-19 vaccine for them

Mr Goyal listened patiently to the ABLE delegation’s request to amend the Biodiversity Act to remove some of its draconian provisions that come in the way of increasing domestic and foreign investments in innovative companies to use our country vast biological resources in a sustainable manner.

Mr Goyal promised to arrange a meeting in Delhi with his Environment Ministry counterpart, Mr Bhupendra Yadav at the earliest and make the Act industry-friendly.

To another request for new funding mechanisms, the Minister suggested ABLE do a modeling with different funding options for different growth stages of innovative biotech companies and present it to the government at the earliest.

ABLE Delegation Meets Key Union Minister