The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms under its BIRAC Regional Entrepreneurship Centre (BREC) program had recently organised the third National Bio Entrepreneurship Boot Camp during July 16-19th, 2019 in partnership with BIRAC.

The event witnessed participation from 80 entrepreneurs and young startupsand the four days involved learning business concepts from two lead faculty members, Dr Shailendra Vyakarnam, Educator, Mentor, Entrepreneur, Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship, Cranfield University, Trustee the GEN Initiative,and Dr Uday Phadke, Chief Executive, Cartezia and Founding Chairman, AcceleratorIndia, Cambridge, UK, and a host of other stalwarts as guest speakers.

The Boot Camp was also attended by Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary, DBT, Dr Manish Diwan, Head, SPED, BIRAC and Dominique McAllister, British Deputy High Commissioner, Bengaluru.

Dr Swarup in a fantastic interaction with startups had asked what is the future our innovators see for themselves & promised greater resources to build a robust & supportive ecosystem for enabling Indian biotech entrepreneurs to position themselves on the global map. ‘We want a unicorn to emerge from our Indian biotech entrepreneur ecosystem. The challenge is not just one for the startups, it is one of scalability and sustainability for the entire ecosystem’ she said.

Dr Manish Diwan added that ‘BIRAC aims for greater capacity building efforts like the CCAMP BREC boot camp as we together build a continuous pipeline of innovators in the Indian innovation ecosystem. We want young entrepreneurs to create their own jobs instead of waiting for one!’

The boot camp in itself consisted of detailed sessions on business concepts such as triple-chasm model, vectors, sub vectors and their types based on the Vyakarnam-Phadke publication – ‘Camels, Tigers and Unicorns’. The lead faculty duo also conducted sessions on identifying the correct revenue model for a business, writing a win-win business plan and how to perfect the investor pitch. The sessions were interspersed with hands-on exercises for the startups in order to help them develop the right business strategy based on the maturity of their individual businesses.

The faculty were ably supported during the boot camp by literally the who’s who of the Indian innovation ecosystem such as Ravi Bhola, Partner, K & S Partners, Lalith Kishore, President & CEO, Reprocell India, Amrut Joshi, Founder, GameChanger Law Advisors, Bharath C., Sigtuple and regulatory giants, Dr Rubina Bose and Dr Dhananjay K. Sable, CDSCO, Dr. Nandini Kumar, Former DDG, ICMR, Dr Mahesh Iyer, Cofounder, Sineflex Solutions, Dr Sudhakar Bangera, Partner, Aileen Clinical Research Services, and Dr.MalathiLakshmikumaran, Executive Director, Lakshmikumaran&Shridharan, Attorneys.

The program further included informal fireside chats with some of the most successful & enterprising entrepreneurs from the Indian startup ecosystem each day. Startups interacted with Dr. Anand Anandkumar, CEO & MD, Bugworks, Dr. Kavitha Iyer Rodrigues, CEO, Zumutor Biologics, Nachiket Deval, Cofounder, Coeo Labs, and Dr.Jugnu Jain, CEO, Sapien Biosciences &Saarum Sciences.

The four days finally culminated in the crux of what the boot camp essentially aimed for - a meeting with an investor panel, comprising of NaganandDoraswamy, Managing Partner, Ideaspring, Padmaja Ruparel, Cofounder IAN & Founding Partner, IAN, SubbramaniRamachandrappa, Chairman & MD, Richcore Lifesciences & Dr Bhuvnesh Srivastava, BIRAC; and two-minute group elevator pitches. Ruparelsuggested startups to connect probable investors with domain experts and possible customers for better value proposition especially in the case of deep technology driven ideas. ‘That’s often the deciding factor between angels putting their money where their mouth is.” she said while Ramachandrappa encouraged startups to ‘Communicate your story right at the investor pitch.’

As the four-day event drew to a close, Dr TaslimarifSaiyed, CEO & Director, CCAMP, thanked all participants, faculty and guest speakers. He said, “Our program for bio entrepreneurs in India has just begun with the Boot Camp. Come 1st of August we will begin the call for the National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition, NBEC 3.0. We hope for just a wholehearted participation at NBEC as for this Boot Camp 2019.”

The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms under its BIRAC Regional Entrepreneurship Centre (BREC) program had recently organised the third National Bio Entrepreneurship Boot Camp during July 16-19th, 2019 in partnership with BIRAC.