Karnataka Bio Economy Report details plans to achieve $50 billion revenue by 2025

Karnataka has set a target of raising the state's Bio-economy share to 50% of the national Bio-economy revenue target of $100 billion by 2025. Currently, the state's share stands at a little over a third of the national bio-economy revenues at $22.6 billion, according to the Karnataka Bio-Economy Report (KBER).

The government released the KBER 2020 on Friday at the ongoing Bengaluru Tech Summit 2020.

At the national level, the Bio-economy is valued at $62.5 billion and contributed 2.3% to the national GDP in 2019, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson of Karnataka's Vision Group of Biotechnology and Biocon Group said.

"Biotechnology is a significant value creator accounting for double-digit share. This fits in with the other trends in Karnataka's economy with innovative sectors playing a major role," she said.

As per the KBER estimates, even if the current growth trends continue to be impacted by a few minor Covid-19 hiccups, Karnataka is estimated to reach $42 billion by 2025.

In order to bridge the gap in likely revenues, the report recommends a series of strategic initiatives to overcome this hurdle and cross the target in time.

The KBER highlights six key areas such as Vaccine Hub, BioManufacturing Hub, Bt Crops, Marine Biotech, BioMedical Cluster, Integrated Biorefineries Cluster to achieve the desired target.

"Our confidence to achieve the target much earlier stems from the fact that Karnataka already has a rich presence of 35+ State and Central research institutes. Initiatives like the upcoming Bio-industry cluster at Bengaluru Helix Biotech Park at Electronic City, Bio-incubators in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Dharwad, Bagalkot and Udupi, and seed funding support for more than 150 biotech startups under Elevate Idea2PoC opens new growth opportunities for the sector," Deputy Chief Minister Ashwath Narayan, who is also minister for IT/BT and S&T said.

Additionally, the equity-based investment made through Bio-venture Fund (KITVEN 2 & 3) in DeepTech/EmergeTech companies like Zumutor Biologics (Onco-immunology), Pandorum Technologies (tissue engineering), String Bio (Synthetic Biology), Vipragen Biosciences (Clinical Research) and the most recent, Jiva Sciences, indicate the future potential of the State’s BioEconomy, he said.

“To bridge the gap in likely revenues, the report recommends a series of strategic initiatives to overcome this hurdle and cross the target in time, in the continuing spirit of the state’s industry, policymakers and Government working together with a visionary approach,” Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said.

Karnataka’s BioEconomy registered a 17% growth from $19.3 billion in 2018. The growth in the year prior to that was 15% and if the growth trend continues with a CAGR of 17-18% then the state’s BioEconomy value can reach $50 billion, the report said.

Karnataka’s BioEconomy target of $50 billion is possible if the government supports the key industry in their business goals. A key plan will be to see how BioPharma can be scaled up to increase its contribution from $4.2 billion in FY2020 to $9.5 billion in FY2025.

Similarly, the Medical Devices and Diagnostics sector has the potential to move from $3.9 billion in BioEconomy value to $8.7 billion by FY2020. BioAgri is a very important segment and efforts towards removing policy barriers and
infusion of new-age technologies will boost the entire value chain.

The BioIndustrial segment comprising bio-renewables, bioenergy, biofuels, and green chemicals is throwing up huge potential. Though this segment always had the future, it didn’t take off in a big way in India. This segment has the potential to quadruple its contribution to the BioEconomy of Karnataka from $1.4 billion BioEconomic value to $5.7 billion. The others that are likely to see growth are the Research & Development services, Marine Biotechnology, and BioIT and informatics services.

"The first Karnataka BioEconomy Report has laid out the strategies to further propel the biotechnology industry that contributes more than 10% of the state's economy and the department of Electronics, IT, BT & S&T looks forward to work with all stakeholders to ensure that the challenging target of $ 50 billion BioEconomy valuation by the year 2025 is achieved," EV Ramana Reddy, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Electronics, IT, BT, and S&T said.