BRIC – THSTI announces new partnerships on 17th Foundation Day

The Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) of the Biotechnology Research and Innovation Council (BRIC), under the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India, celebrated its 17th Foundation Day on 15 July 2026 in a ceremony with the august presence of distinguished guests and significant achievements.

Dr Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary, DBT and Director General, BRIC, in his virtual address, appreciated the stupendous achievements of THSTI in its journey of 17 years. He appreciated the institute's robust translation ecosystem and impressive scientific outputs and underlined its pivotal role in promoting innovation and self-reliance in India's rapidly growing bio-economy.

Prof. Roger Fu, 'Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Professor in Medicine' and Deputy Dean of Research at NUS Yong Lu Lin School of Medicine delivered the Foundation Day lecture. Dr Fu advocated an approach that prioritises disease prevention at the population-level rather than cure. He urged the adoption of 'deep metabolic phenotyping' to detect hidden conditions such as visceral adiposity (excessive deposition of fat around the internal organs) long before clinical symptoms appear.

The Foundation Day event saw the exchange of several strategic agreements with key industry partners from different sectors-

• Developing a regulatory science programme to support the development of regulatory guidance with Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO)-
• Designation of THSTI as the ‘WHO-regional biomanufacturing training centre’ for South East Asia region
• Creating an ecosystem at THSTI for cGMP compliant manufacturing for CAR-T cell therapies and lentiviral vectors, in collaboration with Immuneel Therapeutics
• First in human phase-I translational medicine and early phase trials in collaboration with Syngene International
• Collaboration with Netherlands-based Infecta on controlled human infection studies
• Collaboration with the Bio-Assay Lab and the clinical development services agency for product development with Cipla
• Collaboration with Biocon on early drug development
• Commissioning and operating a certified GMP facility for therapeutics at THSTI and to establish a lab to validation scale synbio microbial fermentation facility, with Fermbox Bio
• For studies on effect of botanical extracts on human gut microbiome, with Gramen Botanicals
• Collaboration with Oxford University on clinical assays
• For IP assignment with Arundhati Healthcare and Astraeus Innovus, made through the School of Innovation in Biodesign Programme
• Clinical collaboration with Medanta Group on CAR-T research and early phase clinical trials
• Translational cancer research and AI innovation in collaboration with Biodesign Innovation Labs
• Testing formulations from North East for the management of Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD), in collaboration with Prolivent India
• For Translational innovation research with Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre
• Advancing indigenous Betacoronavirus vaccine to first in human study with Panacea Biotech
• Continuing collaboration with Miltenyi Biotec for India’s first hands-on CAR-T Cell and Gene Therapy training curriculum
• For progressing with development of AI-powered pregnancy care platform with Doto Health
• For progressing with development of AI-powered pregnancy ultrasound reporting system with Qure AI