The Indian government has selected the first batch of biotech companies to join a cost-and-risk sharing scheme. The government-backed Biotechnology Industry Partnership Programme (BIPP), conceived to promote innovation and support “high risk, cutting edge” research within the biotech industry, will provide as much as half the cost of approved projects. Nine biotech firms are in line to receive the first $20 million out of a total $72 million earmarked for the program by the government's Department of Biotechnology (DBT). “BIPP is the biggest public-private partnership program in the country for discovery research,” says Maharaj Kishan Bhan, secretary for DBT. “It will push company [people] to forge collaborations with public sector institutions and also expand their own in-house R&D work force.” The first awards have been allocated to projects on vaccines, biopharmaceuticals and in the areas of agriculture, bio-energy and clinical trials. The projects were selected from 92 proposals that DBT received from 65 companies in response to its call in December 2008. The next call will go out by May 2009. V.N. Balaji, a director of Bangalore-based Jubilant Biosys, is upbeat about the public-private initiative. “If properly implemented, it should give a boost to industry,” he says. DBT will spend one-third of its annual budgets on the partnership program. Industry is being squeezed right now and “it is our duty to go and fund their R&D,” says Bhan.