National bio-entrepreneurship prize for NIPER scholar

Mohali, August 16

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NIPER PhD scholar Sandeep won the National Bio-Entrepreneurship Competition, 2024, (NBEC) under the ‘drug discovery and development’ category. He was presented the cash prize of Rs 1 lakh by IT-BT and Rural Development Minister Priyank Kharge.

Scientists from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali, have achieved national recognition by winning the National Bio-Entrepreneurship Competition 2024. The NIPER team was honoured for their novel biopharmaceutical product, BiSpekDAb™, an engineered bispecific antibody designed to block both TNF-a and IL-23 cytokines, key contributors to various inflammatory conditions. The product has the potential to mitigate asthma inflammation.

It is being developed by the Protein Biopharmaceutical lab led by Dr Abhay H Pande, professor in the Department of Biotechnology, in collaboration with Dr Shyam S Sharma, professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. BiSpekDAb™ was recognised for its significant potential to mitigate asthma inflammation.

NBEC 2024, organized by C-CAMP in collaboration with BIRAC, is one of the country’s most prestigious biotech competitions, drawing over 3,000 participants from across India.

The technology is already patented and is set to undergo further pre-clinical studies in collaboration with Prof Sharma, with an aim to explore its efficacy in various other inflammatory conditions. The team’s next goal is to advance the technology to the Investigational New Drug (IND) application stage. All necessary steps will be taken to make BiSpekDAb™ available across the nation. — TNS