India to scale up biotech clusters

The Indian government will scale up biotech clusters in Faridabad and Bengaluru, said Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley during a speech announcing the country's 2014-2015 budget. Jaitley said the project will "include global partnerships in accessing model-organism resources for disease biology, stem cell biology and for high-end electron microscopy."

Vince Suneja, CEO of Indian life science consultancy TwoFour Insight Group LLC, told BioCentury that while the budget does not address many issues specific to biotech, "it does help move the needle towards where it needs to go." He noted, for instance, the budget contains a Rs100 billion ($1.7 billion) fund to provide equity, loans and risk capital to startups. Suneja said the budget did not address drug price controls or clinical trial regulation. ...