Dr. Manish Diwan

Board Member

Head – Strategic Partnership & Entrepreneurship Development, & Make In India Facilitation Cell for Biotech sector

Leading large national programs for Government of India’s efforts to nurture and empower the Biotech Innovation Ecosystem in India. Sectoral lead for National Missions especially Startup India, Make In India; contributes to Policy Reforms; Strategic collaborations including International partnerships; serves on National committees and Advisory Boards.

Leads national flagship schemes and programs of BIRAC promoting Startups, Entrepreneurs and Industry. Manages Risk Funding through Grant-in-aid, Equity, co-investments by Angels, VCs, AIFs (Fund of funds); setting up Incubation Centres for capacity building; Human Resource development through integrating a large partner pool of mentors, experts, peers and industry associations. Being a central enabler representative, contributes in Ecosystem gap identification and finding solutions. A few policy initiatives include establishment of the Technology Clusters with Pilot and manufacturing facilities for startups, Field validation for startup solutions, Access to Regulatory guidance, Scaling and Global integration through a strategic network of national and international partnerships.
Supports technology led Startups, Entrepreneurs, Incubation Centres, Knowledge Clusters of Academia and Industry enabling them to address unmet needs in the Healthcare, Medical Devices, Diagnostics, Industrial biotech, Agriculture, Waste management, Clean Energy and related areas through development of globally competitive, innovative products and technologies.

He has about 27 years of global R&D experience in Pharma/ Biotech sector from discovery research to product development, Science Administration and Project Management for Industry and Academia. Before moving into Public sector in 2017, he contributed to several Clinical Drug Candidates for global drug development at Daiichi Sankyo (India), Daiichi Sankyo (Japan), Ranbaxy, Dabur and University of Alberta (Canada). Also developed technologies during doctoral (ICGEB, NII India) and post-doctoral research (KAIST South Korea; University of Alberta) that were transferred to industry. Trained in Pharmaceutics, Molecular Pharmacology, Immunology, he has led
large professional teams in First-In-Class and Best-In-Class Drug Discovery, Translational Preclinical Research and Early Clinical Development.