NextGen Policy, Goes Far Beyond Life Sciences: Jayesh Ranjan

Hyderabad: To put Telangana, specifically Hyderabad, on the global map of rapidly evolving domains in Life Sciences, such as Cell and Gene Therapy, genomics, precision medicine, advanced manufacturing and R&D, the government will soon be launching NextGen Life Sciences policy to attract innovative companies. Incentives, subsidies, and other benefits for such companies have been listed in the new policy, said Jayesh Ranjan.

“The name of the policy is NextGen Policy. In the NextGen policy we will mention the incentives that will be extended to such companies, subsidy on import duty of machineries, provide training to professionals to be industry ready for this specific domain, and subsidy on rental fee of office space. In addition, if they develop a solution that is relevant for the people of Telangana then the government will be keen to adopt it,” Government of Telangana’s Special Chief Secretary of Information Technology, Jayesh Ranjan told Bizz Buzz.

Bullish about the number of companies that will enter personalised medicine space or set up facility in the city, Ranjan pointed out that for the first time in India, Miltenyi Biotec, a German company established its presence in the city by opening a Cell and Gene Therapy facility.

“If we look at the global trends, new innovations are taking place in the Life Sciences sector. For instance, Cell and Gene Therapy itself is a breakthrough to look forward to as it will change the course of healthcare and treatment. The concept of personalised medicine is that the patient is evaluated holistically to understand the gene and cell composition and then a medicine is created specifically for that patient. The method of manufacturing such medicines is called as advanced manufacturing. In the near future, many companies will get into personalised medicine or Cell-Gene therapy,” he added.

On a query about the status of the 200-acre AI City project, Ranjan informed that acquisition of land and creation of the connecting roads is in the final stage. Likely, by the end of this month or the next month the physical infrastructure will be ready for the government to make the official announcement.

When asked about the companies that have expressed interest to invest in AI City, he informed of having received more than 24 applications. Ranjan further added, “We want first few anchor companies to enter AI City. We are not rushing into allotting facilities to everyone. Cyberabad became well-known as Microsoft was the first company to set up its facility there. That is the plan here too, to bring in good names, later, based on that reputation others will follow. Microsoft and HCL have already agreed to open office there…”