Science & Nature

Biological R&D in India gets a BioRRAP boost

BioRRAP portal to strive towards providing added credibility and recognition to such biological research.  

Seeking regulatory approval for biological research and development activity in the country will now be able to do it easily with BioRRAP. In case you are wondering what BioRRAP is, it is a single national portal for biotech researchers and start-ups that rides the Union government’s One Nation, One Portal vision. Further, it comes across as a relief towards ease of science as well as ease of business.

Going by the words of Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Science and Technology, the BioRRAP or Biological Research Regulatory Approval Portal will allow stakeholders to see the approvals accorded against a particular application through a unique BioRRAP ID. The unique portal outed by the Department of Biotechnology comes as a step towards “Ease of Doing Science and Scientific research and Ease of Start-ups in India”.

India has potential to be global bio-manufacturing hub

Bio-technology has fast emerged as an academic and livelihood avenue for youngsters in India. As per statistics, there are more than 2,700 biotech start-ups and over 2,500 biotech companies at present in the country. With India showing potential to be a Global Bio-manufacturing Hub, and to be among the top 5 countries of the world by 2025, the scenario has turned immensely significant. India is among the top 12 destinations for biotechnology globally and third largest biotechnology destination in the Asia Pacific region. It is expected that, by 2025, the contribution of the Indian biotechnology industry in the global biotechnology market would jump to 19 percent from the 3 percent recorded during 2017.

The BioRRAP Portal is expected to add muscle to interdepartmental synergies and also usher in accountability, transparency and efficacy in functioning of agencies regulating various aspects of biological research and issuing permission. Dr Jitendra Singh has urged the Department of Biotechnology to strive towards evolving further mechanisms so as to make the procedures simpler and effective.

BioRRAP to help researchers see various stages of approval

Research in the various biological fields is continuously expanding its vista in India supported by the grants from various public and private sector, he added, saying that many of these research falls under the purview of one or more regulatory agencies which first approve the research proposal after which researcher undertakes that specific research.

Besides biotechnology, work related to biodiversity, latest methods of conservation and protection of flora and fauna, forest and wildlife, bio-survey and bio-utilization of biological resources are also gaining momentum in India due to effect of climate change on them, according to the Minister.

The current situation is that there is no mechanism to track the requisite regulatory approval for a research proposal on a single portal. This scenario is expected to change with the biotech portal, which would strive towards providing added credibility and recognition to such biological research.  The BioRRAP portal is expected to function as a gateway to help researchers see the various stages of approval of their applications for regulatory clearances and also have preliminary information on all the research work being undertaken.

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Sanjeev Ramachandran

A journalist with 23 years of experience, Sanjeev has worked with reputed media houses such as Business Standard, The Ne More »

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