National Dept of Biotechnology sees Big Data propelling it to $100 bn industry by 2025

The National Biotechnology Development Strategy 2015-20 was unveiled by the Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, and the Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Y S Chowdary, in the presence of the Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Dr. Vijay Raghavan and other key stakeholders. The National Biotechnology Development Strategy 2015-20 aims to establish India as a world-class bio-manufacturing hub. It intends to launch a major mission, backed with significant investments, for the creation of new biotech products, create a strong infrastructure for R&D and commercialization, and empower India’s human resources scientifically and technologically. The Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Dr Vijay Raghavan said, “India stands at an extraordinary position in science and technology. Our challenge is to build on this foundation to see how to take the country further. Biotechnology has an important part to play in India’s growth story and there is enthusiastic support from the Government for this vision. We have drafted a very ambitious strategy with the target to turn biotechnology into a US $100 billion industry by 2025.” Some key factors that the Department of Biotechnology expects will propel the industry forward is manufacturing of laboratory equipment and harnessing the power of Big Data. IT and Biotechnology go back a long way. Big Data, in particular, has piqued the interest of healthcare, medicine and the biotechnology verticals. The most established results have been seen in cancer research but it can be applied across genomics, clinical research, drug safety and even prevention of drug counterfeiting.  Basically, new architectures of databases and new IT infrastructures enable to overcome hurdles like complexities as well as high amounts of data and/or data sources and find answers to questions that were not possible to solve before. Further, saving time and computing capacity can enable pharma companies to make sound decision in earlier R&D stages than before, which means saving cost and time to market. “Big Data technology also allows understanding illnesses that were not much investigated through clinical studies much better than before. For example, many clinical trials geographically concentrate on Europe which means other regions are currently underrepresented. Big Data solutions can help fill the gap by identifying suitable participants worldwide and process the data. They can also help shift focus of R&D from investigating how to deal with symptoms towards the root causes of a chronic disease and to further advance personalized medicine quicker,” explains this blog. Tech giants like Google have also seen potential in this space and has invested in Calico – a company focusing on aging and extending the human lifespan. Calico will use Big Data approaches to tackle slowing of disease.   With inputs from PTI