The Life Sciences Advisory Committee in Telangana that functions with the objective of being a structured interface between the government, industry and academia has been reconstituted with chairman of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Satish Reddy as its chairman.
Biological E managing director Mahima Datla will be its vice-chairman, while director, Life Sciences of Telangana government will be the convener. Comprising senior officials from industries department, industry leaders and heads of research institutions, the reconstituted committee has representation from a number of sectors, from pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices to digital health.
Announcing reconstitution of the committee by the State government with a two-year term for the members, an official release said Industries and IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao chaired the first meeting of the new committee on Wednesday. The Minister said: “It is our vision to grow the Life Sciences industry from $50 billion to $100 billion and create 400,000 new jobs this decade.” Detailing measures of the State government towards strengthening the sector, he urged the committee to play a pivotal role in advising the government on the initiatives that can help consolidate Hyderabad’s leadership position in life sciences.
The members brainstormed and deliberated on different areas such as industry-academia collaboration, strengthening of public health infrastructure, development of Genome Valley with focus on innovation, funding for start-ups, skill development, pharma services driven ecosystem, diagnostics and digital medicine.
According to the release, the first committee was formed in 2016 under the chairmanship of Prof. D. Balasubramanian, Director Emeritus (Research), LV Prasad Eye Institute and Mr. Reddy as vice-chairman. It had advised the government on aspects like improving Ease of Doing Business (EODB) specific to the Life Sciences sector at various state level agencies, which were successfully implemented. The committee supported the planning of Hyderabad Pharma City and organisation of BioAsia.
