NBEC, India’s largest and the most prestigious national competition for bio entrepreneurs, was being held for the sixth consecutive year by Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms as part of the BREC – the BIRAC Regional Entrepreneurship Centre, established at C-CAMP in partnership with BIRAC. NBEC aims to attract, identify and nurture deep science driven business ideas that address India’s most pressing societal challenges in new, innovative, and commercially viable ways.

The competition was launched by Dr. Vijay Chandru, Co-Founder & Director, Strand Life Sciences in presence of startups, several eminent industry partners and stakeholders from the ecosystem. Dr. Chandru was joined by Dr. Alka Sharma, Senior Advisor, DBT and MD, BIRAC; Dr. Manish Diwan, Head, Strategic Partnerships & Entrepreneurship Development, BIRAC and C-CAMP CEO and Director Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed.

Two parallel tracks, one for start-ups, entrepreneurs and established companies in India and an exclusive one for aspiring student teams were there. The prize money was of up to 10 lakhs for winners of student teams track and 16.0 Cr including investment opportunity for start-up track. There was 30+ Industry and Investment Partners. The main focus areas were Healthcare, Therapeutics, Vaccines, Medical Devices, Diagnostics, Digital Health including AI & ML, Maternal & Child Nutrition, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), Agritech & Mol Bio, Al & ML in Agri, Food & Nutraceuticals, Environmental Biotech, Clean & Renewable Energy, Water & Sanitation, Industrial Biotechnology, Personal Care Products.

24 winners from the Start-up and student track bagged 16 Cr INR in cash prizes and investment opportunities at NBEC 2022.

The winners of NBEC Grand Finale 2022 were:

• Vivek Gupta from Gumpro Drilling Fluids Pvt Ltd for winning the Novozymes Cash prize of INR 3 Lakhs in the domain of Biotech.
• Srinath GS from TAPAH Mechatronix Pvt Ltd for winning the Mahyco Cash prize of INR 3 Lakhs in the domain of Agritech
• Rajkumar Halder from Ruhvenile Biomedical for winning the Biocon Biologics Cash prize of INR 3 Lakhs in the domain of Therapeutics & Drug Discovery
• Anjana Badrinarayanan from BioHues for winning the Curadev Cash prize of INR 3 lakhs in the domain of Green Chemistry
• Radhesh Agrahari from Mudita & Radhesh Pvt Ltd for winning the Syngene International Limited Cash prize of INR 3 Lakhs in the domain of Therapeutics & drug discovery.
• Prasad Desai from Animal Digital Information Systems-ADIS for winning the Anthem Biosciences Private Limited Cash prize of INR 3 Lakhs in the domain of Molecular Biology & AI in Agri

24 winners from the Start-up and student track bagged 16 Cr INR in cash prizes and investment opportunities at NBEC 2022.