“The whole intent (of the more than a decade old annual India-US bio pharma summit) is to catalyse an innovation ecosystem in India. I think, COVID has actually created the ecosystem,” Mazumdar-Shaw told PTI in an interview.

COVID, she, noted, has actually resulted in innovative vaccines being produced, such as Covaxin, Genova mRNA programme, and many other programmes that the Indian vaccine makers have licensed and developed in the country.

“Then, of course, the whole clinical research ecosystem has been created because we’ve had so many clinical trials in India, whether it is for new repurpose drugs or vaccines…basically bridging trials, a lot of clinical trials have also happened in India,” said the executive chairperson and founder of Biocon, a top biotechnology company based in Bangalore, noting that clinical trials were banned in India at one stage.

“And then when the whole environment opened up for clinical trials, there were not enough trials going on. Now suddenly, a whole bunch of clinical trials have gone on. A lot of clinical sites have opened. A lot of investigator-initiated studies have started.

“I think the whole understanding that you’ve just got to get into clinical trials and clinical research, to actually address a large number of unmet needs is now beginning to dawn on the Indian innovation system,” Mazumdar-Shaw said.

She noted that India has a large number of incubators, where they are developing some very innovative programmes.

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