Manipal, March 2021.

Manipal Academy of Higher Education is going to establish Manipal Centre for Biotherapeutics Research within a few months. MAHE Vice Chancellor Lt Gen. M D Venkatesh said “MAHE is an Institution of Eminence and we are exploring newer areas of education and research where we can take a lead. Active Academia-Industry collaboration is one of the areas of high priority for enhanced research output in the top-ranking universities. Some of the high-value biological drugs and devices were developed from such collaborations and licensed to Biopharma companies globally. We have identified the need for MAHE to collaborate with Biopharma companies to carry out innovative research, process and product development in the area of biotherapeutics”.

The coordinator of the centre, Prof. Raviraja N S, Director Corporate Relations, said “The overall aim of this centre is to carry out cutting edge research in the area of biotherapeutics in collaboration with Biopharma Industries. This includes developing and filing commercially relevant patents that can be out- licensed to the Biopharma companies, establishing active collaboration with Biopharma companies to develop products/processes relevant to the industries, and facilitating Biopharma companies to create collaborative research units at MAHE. The centre will offer Masters and PhD programs and house collaborate research units along with leading national and international biopharma companies. The centre is going to focus its research mainly in the areas of cell, gene, protein, nano / biomaterial therapeutics. An infrastructure to promote education and research along with the active collaboration biopharma companies is being established to cater the research and product development needs. The centre will house 2 dedicated cGMP labs with class ‘D’ background, 4 research labs and collaborative research units with Biopharma companies.