Hyderabad, Aug 13 (IANS): Telangana's life sciences sector has attracted Rs 10,222 crore in investment during the last four years, including Rs 3,000 crore in research and development, Industry Minister K.T. Rama Rao said on Sunday.
Since January 2015, when the state passed announced TS-iPASS, a new system for industrial clearance, about 700 investment proposals in life sciences sector were approved. These include more than 100 R&D proposals.
According to a statement from the Minister's office, 80 per cent of these projects have already commenced project execution. These envisage about 20,000 high value R&D jobs and around 50,000 manufacturing jobs in the state.
The contribution of life sciences sector to the overall product export value from Telangana is a whopping 36 per cent, which has almost doubled during the last four years.
The life sciences product exports in the state grew at 2.41 times over the last four years, compared with the national average of 1.18 times.
Rama Rao, who is son of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, reviewed the sector at a meeting with officials on Sunday.
With the focus on cluster development (Hyderabad Pharma City, Genome Valley 2.0 and the Medical Devices Park), along with various initiatives of the government including Life Sciences Vision 2030, B-Hub, BioAsia, Life Sciences Infrastructure Fund, Innovation Fund, ease of doing business, skilling initiatives, and the government's commitment to extend a red carpet to the industry, the sector is poised to become the bejeweled crown for a 'Golden Telangana', he said.
The state's focus has not just been on nurturing industries, but also on skill training and promotion of innovation.
The Minister said government has partnered with US Pharmacopeia for setting up a training institute for university graduates and pharma professionals to address the skill gap on regulatory and data.
A number of other skilling programmes focused on vaccines, biopharma, pharmaceutical manufacturing, artificial intelligence in healthcare, among others, are under finalisation.
The state has witnessed entry of marquee global names and new players like Ferring Pharma, Chemo, GSK, Syngene, Slayback Pharma, Johnson & Johnson and the expansion of the existing marquee companies such as Novartis, Biological E, Laurus Labs, Pulse Pharma, among others.