The new ‘start-up’
culture developing in India is a good sign. Investors are getting more
interested in this space; however, the investors also need to look beyond the
e-commerce space. Many life science based organizations can be a good bet for
middle to long run outlook. Life science offers a big arena to potential investors.
From drug discovery companies to Bioinformatics organizations looking to
disruptive technologies to cater to the ever increasing healthcare needs. Although life science domain requires a
considerably longer gestation period yet there are companies or technologies that
can give a quicker return on investment. Investment from a well meaning ‘patient’
investor(s) can be a force multiplier. The idea of an ‘ideal’ investor is not
very difficult to fathom. Good investment can really turn around a company
faster as compared to, let’ say, if the start-up wanted to scale up through only
internal accruals.
Life Science
organizations require highly skilled manpower. The technology used is ever
evolving hence there is a big scope for right investment in the right
organizations. The chance of ‘fly-by night’ operators in this domain is slim or
negligible. With newer breakthroughs in hardware and better understanding of
the human genome, smarter drugs, accurate diagnosis-prognosis are all in the
realm of reality. Personalized/Precision medicine is the new buzz word which
includes not only advances in medicine but also diagnostics, bio-IT, genomics, proteomics
etc. Start-up organizations working in all the above mentioned mini-domains
ultimately would cater to the ocean of better healthcare. Therefore the success
of many of these organizations would depend on how the investor community looks
at this space and helps it grow more thereby not only creating jobs but also
giving India the ‘knowledge-edge’ that
many of the intellectuals talk about as our strength.
I believe that the
start-up revolution in the bioscience space in India has not even started but
if nurtured well it has the potential to turn around and give India its next ‘Life
Science Google/Alphabet’
