Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa to kickoff project work on Bengaluru Life Sciences Park

BENGALURU: Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa will kick off the work on Bengaluru Lifesciences Park at Electronics City in Bengaluru on Wednesday. The ambitious project is estimated to cost Rs 5000 crore, and is being implemented through a public-private partnership.
The 9-million square feet facility will come up on a 52-acre plot. The government has partnered with Labzone, a Hyderabad-based developer. The first phase of the project is scheduled for completion in December 2022, deputy chief minister CN Ashwath Narayan, who also holds the IT/BT portfolio, told reporters.

The Park, he said, would have a facility to house about 150 firms and will add about 50,000 jobs. It will also have a dedicated incubation space with shared instrumentation lab facilities and customizable fully fitted lab and office suites.

The project, Ashwath Narayan said, was envisioned 20 years ago when the Karnataka Vision group on Biotechnology was set up. The efforts put in by the Vision Group were finally yielding results. The park will elevate Bengaluru on the Biotech map of the world.

Bengaluru, the deputy chief minister said, was home to about 60% of all major biotechnology firms in India with 380 companies and 200 start-ups. Karnataka accounts for 9% of market share in Asia’s biotechnology sector while India has about 35%.

Biotechnology Vision Group chairperson Kiran Majumdar-Shaw said it was Ashwath Narayan’s idea to merge both the IT and Lifesciences technology. “There’s huge demand for this park which will attract major biotech players from across the globe. My endeavor is to put Karnataka and India on top of the innovation map of the world,” she added

Bangalore Life Sciences Park chief executive Chirag Purushotham said 60% of the space (about 37 lakh sq ft) will be solely dedicated to industry cluster development of biotechnology in PPP mode for a lease period of 64 years.

The industrial cluster will form the third component of the Biohelix Park, aimed at strengthening the biotechnology ecosystem in Karnataka. As recommended by the Biotechnology Vision Group, the Biohelix Park has been conceived to promote cutting edge R&D in an institutional area of 20 acres while startups will have an innovation area of 10 acres to create disruptive products. The Biohelix Park is located in ELCITA, which has been recognized as a model township. With a total area of 60 lakh plus square feet, it has state of the art facilities for biotechnology R&D.