Rs 3,700 crore investment in Telangana's life science sector in last year: Minister KT Rama Rao

The sector also has the potential to employ 14,000 people, said IT, industries and investments minister KT Rama Rao

The life sciences sector in Telangana has attracted investments to the tune of Rs 3,700 crore in the last one year, with the potential to employ 14,000 people, said IT, industries and investments minister KT Rama Rao on Monday.

Rao was speaking at the inaugural event of Bio-Asia 2021, the 18th edition of the annual biotech, pharma and healthcare sector conference, taking place in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

While underlining that Covid-19 caused economic devastation, social disruption and over 2.45 million human lives lost globally, Rao said, “On a positive note, our scientists and entrepreneurs gave the life-sciences sector its moment in the spotlight, with accelerated development of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.”

“I take pride in saying that Hyderabad rose to the occasion and made an impact for the world to witness. Our position as the “Vaccine Capital of the World” was further bolstered,” Rao said.

Except for the inaugural event, the two-day conference is taking place virtually. Tuesday's events include "Healthcare to Hit Refresh," an informal conversation between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and minister KT Rama Rao.

Genome Valley Excellence Award to Bharat BioTech

The organising committee of BioAsia has bestowed the Genome Valley Excellence Award 2021 on Bharat BioTech for “its breakthrough, pioneering research, development and commercialisation of vaccines including Covaxin, Rabies vaccine, Japanese Encephalitis vaccine, Polio vaccine and Typhoid Conjugate vaccines, among many others.”

Rao handed the award to Bharat Biotech's CMD and JMD Dr Krishna Ella and Dr Suchitra Ella.

Rao said that the Telangana government is partnering with Cytiva to set up a Biopharma scale-up facility B-Hub in the Genome Valley, on the Hyderabad outskirts. “Eight out of 10 top selling drugs globally today are bio-pharmaceuticals. B-Hub will help Telangana and India in accelerating the growth of the sector.”

Dream and vision of growing the life-sciences industry to over $100 billion looks plausible, the minister said while listing some of the recent investments in Hyderabad like -

"Sai Life Sciences, a leading contract research organization, inaugurated its new R&D center at the Genome Valley with an investment of about Rs 400 crore.

Aurobindo Pharma is building a world-class vaccine manufacturing facility with a capacity of about 450 million doses.

Further, Granules India will invest about Rs 400 crore to set up a facility with capacity to manufacture 10 billion units of finished dosages that will generate employment for about 1,600 persons.

And Laurus Labs is investing Rs 300 crore to set up a formulation facility in Genome Valley with a capacity of five billion units."

With the theme of ‘Moving The Needle’, the flagship event of the Telangana government, BioAsia, is this year focusing on Covid-19, global health, pharma and MedTech.