State Govt to establish bioincubator at MAHE

Manipal: Government of Karnataka will establish a centre for bioincubator (Technology Business Incubator, TBI) at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal on October 25, 2019. The centre will be inaugurated by the Deputy Chief Minister, Dr Ashwath Narayan, who is also the minister for Higher Education, IT, BT, Science and Technology and Medical Education.

The Bioincubator Centre will be a joint effort of MAHE and Karnataka Biotechnology and Information Technology Services, Karnataka. The inauguration of the Centre will be at 10am. That will be followed by a stage programme in the Chaitya Hall of Fortune Inn Valley View.

“This will be our second incubator,” Dr H.S. Ballal Pro Chancellor MAHE to media persons at MAHE on Tuesday. “The other is Manipal Universal Technology Business Incubator (MUTBI) which has already supported 30 start-ups since it was set up in 2010. MUTBI is funded by the Central Government and this one will be funded by the state government, Dr Ballal said”.

Dr Srihari Y Upadhayay, CEO of MUTBI briefly spoke about the existing incubator and how it has helped the start-ups to become recognized businesses. Also present on the occasion were Pro Vice Chancellors, Dr PLNG Rao and Dr Poornima Baliga.

“Recently, Karnataka was declared as the state with maximum innovations in the country and our contribution to that is invaluable,” Dr Ballal claimed. “We hope to do much better now that we have one for the health sciences as well. The Karnataka Government will support us with 6.5 crore rupees for five years and we are providing the space and all facilities. Anyone with an innovative idea can come and work on their start-up here,” he said.

Giving details of the Manipal-GoK Bioincubator, its CEO, Dr Manesh Thomas said, “This Technology Business Incubator will promote technology innovations for the development of knowledge-based enterprise with successful business models.  Bioincubator will have world-class facilities, infrastructure and services for the incubation of the start-ups in various domains of the biopharma, biomedical devices, dental innovation, biotechnology, healthcare and diagnostics”.

He added, “The Centre will be a K-tech Innovation hub developed in MAHE’s Advanced Research Centre, 3rd Floor, Manipal. The Manipal-GoK Bioincubator will extend all possible support to innovators and start-ups through various schemes and programmes as a part of its policy support”.

“Bioincubator programmes are open for all innovators across the globe and have various flexible incubation programmes such as pre-Incubation, co-incubation, virtual incubation and full time incubation programmes for proof of concept, testing, validation, trials and commercial operation,” Dr Thomas added.