Biocon opens centre for biotech learning

Biocon on Monday announced the setting up of the Biocon Academy which will offer Biocon KGI Certificate in Bio-Sciences in collaboration with Keck Graduate Institute, USA aiming to make students industry-ready.

Biocon Academy, set up in Bangalore, aims to train and develop industry-ready talent for India’s Biopharma sector and enable global competitiveness. It will feature 16 week full-time certificate programme in Biosciences in collaboration with KGI at a course fee of Rs 1.5 lakh beginning January next year. In its first year, it plans to admit 100 students in batches of 30 each.

Biocon Managing Director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said that though the institute will spend close to Rs 6 lakh per student for the course, the institute will offer 75 per cent scholarship to all selected candidates.

For the remaining Rs 1.5 lakh, Biocon Academy would help students secure loans from banks.

This will help students as, even though 40,000 biotech students pass out every year, only 2,000 are employable.

She explained that Biocon has invested Rs 10 crore in the project infrastructure and would spend roughly Rs 5 crore every year on administrative costs.

"India has a potential of becoming a global innovation hub for Biotechnology. The Indian Biotech sector is estimated of the size of $11 billion today and it has grown at the CAGR of 20 per cent over last 10 years. The aim of the sector is to realise the revenue of $100 billion by 2025," Mazumdar-Shaw said.

“Biocon is pleased to partner with KGI in its new training initiative, the Biocon Academy, aimed at developing a new cadre of life sciences professionals.”
“KGI is uniquely qualified, through its outstanding faculty and its state-of-the-art infrastructure that includes the Amgen Bioprocessing Center, to help us with this endeavour.”

Those with a BE/BTech in Biotechnology / Industrial Biotechnology; MSc. in Biotechnology / Microbiology / Biochemistry / Biology; and B. Pharm with a CGPA of 7.5 (71 percentage) and above are eligible to apply for the course.