New Delhi, June 30: The Centre's department of biotechnology today launched a $375-million (Rs 2,400 crore) initiative to turn novel ideas from academic institutions and industry into diagnostic tools, drugs, medical devices or vaccines for the market.

The "Biopharma Mission" will seek to deliver six to 10 new such products and increase India's share of the global biopharmaceutical market from the current 2.8 per cent to 5 per cent over the next five years, Harsh Vardhan, the Union science and technology minister, said.

"The mission will promote collaborative research, it will establish new facilities for people and institutions to work together, it will also create jobs," Vardhan said at the launch. The Centre will provide $250 million (Rs 1,600 crore), while the balance will be a loan from the World Bank.

Senior officials in the department of biotechnology (DBT), an arm of the science ministry, are hoping the new initiative will amplify and accelerate research and development activities aimed at developing products for the biopharmaceuticals market.

Since the mid-1990s, research projects supported by the DBT in academic institutions have spawned more than 30 products which are already in the market -an immunostimulant vaccine to combat leprosy, a vaccine against rotavirus infections and diagnostic tests for HIV and dengue, among them. Yet, science policy makers have been concerned that despite these investments, India's market share for biopharmaceuticals is low.

"The biopharma mission is intended to fill gaps that may be holding back research ideas," said K. Vijay Raghavan, the biotechnology secretary. "These may be gaps in infrastructure for research or computational resources or lack of adequate academic-industry interaction."

A biotechnology start-up, for instance, may not have the resources to invest in a technology development platform, he said. The mission will create common infrastructure facilities that academic and industrial partners could share to turn laboratory ideas into marketable products.

The DBT plans to soon issue a "call for proposals," seeking research ideas from academic institutions or industries. A panel of experts will pick projects to be supported through the mission. "We're hoping to create an environment that serves as a pipeline for products in the years to come," said Renu Swarup, a senior DBT official who is coordinating the mission.

A document outlining the mission's objectives released by the DBT today said the mission is expected to generate two or three vaccines for select diseases, two or three biotherapeutic molecules, two medical devices and two diagnostic tests.

The DBT said the mission is intended to address India's lag in the biopharmaceutical sector. The Indian biopharmaceutical industry is several years "behind their counterparts" in the developed countries and faces stiff competition from China and South Korea.