As part of this plan, BIRAC has introduced the Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIG) scheme, designed to stimulate research discoveries by providing grants for further development and maturation of these discoveries.

Unfortunately, as far as BIG applicants are concerned, access to high-end infrastructure, expert-level guidance, and cutting-edge technology would be inaccessible or prove to be an expensive ordeal or even an unaffordable task.

Officially, C-CAMP (Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms) has been chosen as one of the three BIG Partner organizations by DBT, to nurture innovation and inventions, which are at an embryonic stage, to reach their proof of concept (PoC) level.

As a final culmination on June 18, 2014, C-CAMP saw the first graduating batch of six of the BIG grantees namely: Achira Labs, Codon Biosciences, Pandorum Technologies, Sea6 Energy, Vikas Mehra & Team, and Western Range Biopharmaceuticals. The event took place at the C-CAMP venue at GKVK campus in Bangalore.

The grantees gave an individual, 15-minute presentation on their works based on scientific depth and IP strategy, differentiator and competitive advantage, commercialization prospects, market strategy and business model and funding.

Talking exclusively to BioSpectrum, Dr Taslimarif Saiyed, COO and director, C-CAMP, said, "The idea behind this is the celebration of exciting innovations and ideas by start-ups. Through this, C-CAMP and BIRAC were able to team up, creating an opportunity for mentoring these start-ups. This enabled us to discuss many interesting ideas to reach the proof of concept stage and to further come closer to much more tangible reality. At C-CAMP we continue to support, foster and nurture such ideas at an early level."

One of the graduating companies, Pandorum Technologies' chairman, Dr Tuhin Bhowmick commented, "C-CAMP has been our partner and incubator for the past one-and-half years. My whole team is from IISc. The infrastructure and facilities at C-CAMP has been excellent. But raising our funds was a big challenge."

Prior to the day, the BIG grantees met with Biocon's CMD, Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw in a session called, 'Dining with Czars', making a short, 5-minute presentation on their respective work in Electronic City, Bangalore.