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Start-ups in Biotechnology: An Era of Change

From the era of continuous improvement that has gone by, a new era of continuous and unexpected changes have arrived. A devastating pandemic has stricken the world, with its cruel hands brining the world economy to a hold. COVID-19 has affected the lives of every individual, young or old. It has devoured most of the world, irrespective of caste, colour or creed, yet hope has not died out. Biotechnology has emerged as a beacon of hope at the time of adversities. As it is aptly said -the time of adversities is also an advent of opportunities and possibilities. Biotechnology has become a potential candidate and a frontline warrior for the exhaustive fight against COVID-19.  It is an interdisciplinary sector of life-science which has more to give for the development in various sectors such as health, agriculture, industries, environment, etc., as it encompasses the application of technological advancements and recent developments in tools and techniques which are being constantly employed for the advancement of humankind. Government is also trying to develop and focus on innovative and entrepreneurial skills and encourage start ups in order to strengthen the Indian economy after being hit by COVID-19. A welcoming change has open windows of opportunities with the introduction of new education policy by the government to develop professionals with cutting edge technological skills in areas of science and technology such as Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, Neural sciences etc. and their application in various sectors such as Health and Environment being the center of focus in the current scenario. Some of the known pioneer’s of start-ups in 2020 in the field of biotechnology have been listed below.

Biocon

It is one of the pioneering enterprises in India in Banglore and is the largest Pharmaceutical in India. The founder of this company is Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, a visionary and is one of the richest an entrepreneurs among women in India. The main focus of the company is on enzymes, hormones and Monoclonal antibodies.  It has annual revenue is currently $48 million per year.

Samumed

One of the most richest industries but least shown in the radar is Samumed (San Diego, CA, USA). It was founded by Osman Kibar and it focuses on stem cell research and regeneration. It has annual revenue is currently $29.6 million per year.  It has done pioneer job in curing diseases, countering hair loss as well as anti-aging research.

Bharat Biotech

This Company was founded by Indian scientist, Krishna Ella in Hydrabad. It is a leading Bio-pharmaceutical company which was the first company to develop and patent ‘Zikavac’ a vaccine against Zika virus and also it was the first in pharma company to develop generic medicines in India. The company has an annual turn-over of $7 million per year.

Ginkgo Bioworks

This start-up designs custom organisms for customers across multiple markets from drugs, polymers or secondary metabolites and perfumes using engineered organisms using software and hardware automation. It is estimated Ginkgo Bioworks's has annual revenue of $50.1 million per year. One of its projects is recreation of perfumes and aromatics from extinct plant species using Recombinant DNA Technology. It majorly produces essential oils by insertion DNA into through yeast and produce aromas of plants such as of Hibiscadelphus (extinct around 1912), Orbexilum stipulatum (extinct around, 1881), South African Leucadendron grandiflorum (extinct around 1806) etc.

GANIT Lab.

A Banglore based government funded Bioinformatica and IT lab founded in 2010 by  Dr. Vijaya Chandru and Dr. Vinay Panda. This lab works on Genomics Application and Information Technology. It works on developing analytical tools and manages large scale genetic data analysis of cancer and various tissue diseases.

Proteus Digital Health

Silicon Valley start-up in Redwood City, USA is a pioneering industry in health monitoring technology; its founder is Andy Thompson the Chief Executive Officer of the company. They have designed apps to monitor health status & drug administration, ingestible sensor also called ‘smart tablets’, wearable sensors and patches. A new product was launched in January 2019, world’s first health system to use digital chemotherapy drugs with ingestible sensor that tracks  drug’s absorption.

Impact Vision

This start-up is in San Francisco USA and works on “hyperspectral technology,” used for analysis of food quality through real time management of food quality and analyse the half shelf life. The company’s solution lets users simply take a picture of the food and see its condition and ingredients in a web app.

International Ltd.

International Ltd. is pioneer company in Plant Biotechnology in India and ventures in sata of the art Plant Tissue Culture Laboratory is a setup in major economic zone Cochin in Kerela and is employed for mass production of elite species and their mass propagation. It produces 10 million plant per year and employs a large scale workers with three-forth employees being female.

Condial Biosciences

It is the words best start-ups for cellular modelling in 2015 and employs the application of exosomes in target therapy of various disease and disorders. It was founded by Douglas E. Williams, Ph.D. who is the CEO and president of the company.  The company has annual revenue of $15.7 million per year.

By

Tanuja Murab, Assistant Professor,

Department of Biotechnology

Career College, Bhopal.