РОССИЙСКАЯ АКАДЕМИЯ НАУК УРАЛЬСКОЕ ОТДЕЛЕНИЕ ИНСТИТУТ ХИМИИ TBEPДОГО ТЕЛА |
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16.04.2008 | Карта сайта Language |
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When Chandrasekhar Nair, a chemical engineer at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, founded Bigtec in 2006 he had help from the Society for Innovative Development - an organisation set up by IISc to help nurture university spin-outs. With eight patents in the pipeline, Bigtec is now ready to license its first product: a palm size device that can detect the Hepatitis C virus in minutes instead of hours. While some of India's biggest universities Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi were able to follow the IISc lead, most didn't have the necessary time or resources required. The June bill should allow more universities to help their researchers to commercialise their work, Nair believes. 'This is a great opportunity for [academics],' he says. Cash windfall The new law is also underpinned by year on year increases to the science budget and recent efforts to improve patent protection for new drugs. At 0.8 per cent of GDP, Indian science spending still lags behind China and most OECD countries. But this year's budget of 242 billion rupees (£3 billion) is a fifth higher than the 2007 budget, which was also a fifth higher than science spending in the previous year. Even small colleges can now expect to receive up to two million rupees to improve infrastructure such as labs and teaching facilities. 'Today an assistant professor can ask for 10 million rupees for research and committees are willing to consider the request,' says Thalappil Pradeep a chemistry professor at IIT Madras who has just launched a firm that will use proprietary nanotechnology to purify water. 'Money is not a deterrent anymore.' Meanwhile, rules introduced in 2005 that prevented local drug firms from copying and producing patented drugs have forced some to invest more heavily in research. 'Adoption of [this] product patents regime . has created a huge demand for organic chemists,' says Goverdhan Mehta, renowned chemist and former director of theIISc in Bangalore. And while the pharmaceutical industry has gone on a hiring spree, the promise of better patent protection has encouraged more chemists to set up their own drug discovery firms, Mehta says. More cash is also now on hand to help such firms to thrive. India's science ministry established a Pharmaceutical Research and Development Support Fund with an initial investment of 1.5 billion rupees. The interest on that cash in now being used to support start-ups. And there are further efforts to boost university technology transfer on the way. The government next plans to fund business incubators in every major university to help nurture academic spin-outs.
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