Asia’s largest Life-sciences and healthcare forum BioAsia, will continue to feature a dedicated platform - Start-up Stage in its 17th edition to be held at Hyderabad between February 17th to 19th February 2020. The Start-up Stage at BioAsia 2020 will provide a unique opportunity to the most promising start-ups across India to interact with global industry leaders. Start-up Stage will enable entrepreneurs to showcase their innovative solutions in the pharma, biotech, life sciences, health-tech, and med-tech sectors. 

Start-up Stage is designed to encourage innovative collaborations and partnerships between entrepreneurs and industry leaders / investors. Top 5 start-ups from these 75 shortlisted start-ups will get an opportunity to present their solution to the leaders from over 50 Nations in attendance at BioAsia in addition to the cash prize. The start-ups will also get an unmatched opportunity to request exclusive one-to-one meetings with the participating delegates and be a part of the overall deliberations at the event. These opportunities would help them to get insights and guidance on several emerging healthcare challenges and technologies. They will get access to be a part of all the conferences and sessions at BioAsia 2020. 

Interested Start-ups can visit BioAsia 2020 website to apply for Start-up stage at https://forms.gle/PAR95YquLkB5tMHU8. Selected start-ups will get free exhibit space, networking opportunity and visibility in the foremost global conference, among others. 

Government of Telangana and BioAsia have partnered with Tech Mahindra as the lead sponsor for the Start-up stage. Commenting on the Start-up Stage, Mr. Jayesh Ranjan IAS, Principal Secretary, Industries & Commerce and Information Technology, Government of Telangana said, “BioAsia has emerged as one of the highly regarded life sciences conventions with participation of Who’s who of the life sciences sector. Vision of the Telangana Government has been to promote innovation and in line, we have been encouraging innovative solutions in life sciences and healthcare by start-ups to be showcased as part of this biggest gathering of life sciences. In the last 5 years of the Start-up stage at BioAsia, we have constantly worked to encourage and showcase the promising start-ups and this platform has received an enthusiastic response from the stakeholders, investor community, etc. We are delighted that the start-ups recognized in the last few years at BioAsia have been continuously moving up in the value chain and creating a niche positioning.” 

In the last 2 editions of BioAsia’s Start-Up stage, some of the high potential start-ups recognized and awarded have been continuously moving up in the value chain creating a niche positioning. Caredose which was awarded in 2019 edition and offers a proprietary technology aiding chronic patients in medicine adherence by providing pre-packaged medication, reminders to consume medication, ability to reorder, alert a caregiver and relay the adherence data to providers for better diagnosis has successfully raised a total of USD 300,000 in 2019 itself and partnered with Abbott Pharmaceuticals to help them with their patient adherence program. Similarly, Next Big Innovation Lab which developed India’s first customisable 3D Bioprinter (TRIVIMA), was not only successful in raising funds from global major MERCK but has also set-up TRIVIMA within Merck’s R&D lab in Darmstadt, Germany for collaborative R&D. It is also invited at World Economic Forum to be part of Expert Network in 3D printing and offer inputs in the area of 3D Bioprinting. Another start-up, Dozee which is a contactless, non-wearable health-monitoring solution provider has been selected by the Government of India to represent Indian start-ups at Estonia its solution achieved accuracy to track heart valve movements, thereby, helping flag cases of heart failure in advance. Docturnal Private Limited which is a point of care screening and diagnostics provider of non-invasive and proactive detection of diseases as also raised funds from Mumbai Angels. Testright which developed high performance and portable Spectrophotometers was also adjudged the National winner at ‘Get in the Ring event’ and further represented India in Berlin. The start-up also received the Patent for its Holofy technology which is sticker-less hologram technology to protect Pharma and FMCG products from counterfeiting. It is now working with eminent brands to protect them from fake products. 

To provide an understanding of the growth drivers and motivating the start-up founders, Mr. Shakthi Nagappan, CEO, BioAsia, said “Start-up Stage has become one of the highlight components of BioAsia and the platform helps start-ups get unparalled access to the who’s who of the global life sciences and healthcare industry. We are overwhelmed with the response from the Start-up community for the event and more than 300 applications have already been received so far. We are also thrilled with the enthusiastic response from the Life Sciences Industry leaders, Venture capital & Angel investor community and the corporate M&A teams of leading pharma & biotech companies.” 

Some of the biggest and influential organizations in the have come joined together for the Start-up Stage includes Tech Mahindra, Swissnex India, Department of Biotechnology, BIRAC, Telangana State Innovation Cell, NASSCOM, T-Hub, Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad, Ernst and Young, Endiya Partners, Mumbai Angels, IKP, AIC_CCMB, Light House Canton, Life Sciences and Healthcare Innovation Forum, yourstory, xpomet (Germany), among others.

BioAsia 2020 is set to host eminent global leaders from the life sciences industry including Mr. Vas Narasimhan (CEO, Novartis), Dr. Carl June (University of Pennsylvania & CAR-T Expert), Dr. Peter Piot (Director, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Co-Discoverer of Ebola), Mr. Ajay Piramal (Chairman, Piramal), Mr. Dilip Sanghvi (Chairman, Sun Pharma), Mrs. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (CMD, Biocon), Mr. Satish Reddy (Chairman, Dr. Reddy’s), among others.