3 min readBengaluruOct 14, 2023 01:56 PM IST
First published on: Oct 13, 2023 at 06:03 PM IST
The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), a biotech research and innovation hub in Bengaluru, Friday announced the establishment of a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) innovations with SBI Foundation, a CSR subsidiary of the State of India.
This project is aimed at addressing global health threats by providing a structured platform for support systems that include funding and frameworks to advance the development, translation and scale-up of indigenous deep science entrepreneurships in the AMR domain.
According to C-CAMP, AMR has been identified by World Health Organisation (WHO) as one of the top ten global health threats claiming 7,00,000 lives per year globally with a projected fatality rate of 10 million per year by 2050.
“While India is one of the leading nations from the Global South in research towards AMR mitigation, deep science entrepreneurial efforts to deliver these emerging solutions from bench to bedside have shown a serious lacuna. This unaddressed gap is now the focus of a new partnership between C-CAMP and SBI Foundation. The project will establish a CoE in AMR innovation by providing a structured platform for support systems and frameworks to advance the development, translation and scale-up of indigenous deep science entrepreneurships in the AMR domain,” C-CAMP said in a release.
Prof Ajay Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, said, “The AMR poses a grave challenge to public health systems across the world and is a WHO priority. Paradoxically, AMR is one of the least funded domains in biotechnology due to its skewed market economics. Funding and handholding support for this deep science sector by the C-CAMP-SBIF CoE will be a tremendous boost for AMR innovation development.”
C-CAMP Director-CEO Dr Taslimarif Saiyed said, “We are excited to ring in our latest partnership with SBI Foundation. This is a crucial PPP collaboration through which we will address AMR by supporting ventures that develop and commercialise scientific breakthroughs and innovations for on-field impact. As the latest ICMR study on AMR showed, last-resort antibiotics like carbapenems are beginning to fail in hospital-acquired infections in ICUs with signs of locally resistant strains emerging. This implies a dire need for indigenous solutions tailored for Indian conditions which this CoE will help identify and support.”
Sanjay Prakash, Managing Director, SBI Foundation, said he is confident that the CoE for AMR Innovation will be the cornerstone in identifying, funding and nurturing startups leading the AMR Innovations.
The CoE will be under the aegis of the global India AMR Innovation hub (IAIH) also anchored by C-CAMP and chaired by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser. The focus of the CoE will be on identifying and supporting through funding and other means, a 360 degree portfolio of cutting-edge deep-science solutions, across AMR and the larger One Health domain spanning Food and Agriculture, Environment and Healthcare.
The CoE plans to kick off its operations by identifying and nurturing up to 12 innovations in the next two years.
Sanjay Prakash, Managing Director, SBI Foundation, said he is confident that the CoE for AMR Innovation will be the cornerstone in identifying, funding and nurturing startups leading the AMR Innovations. (Express Photo) 
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