{
  "id": 14704597,
  "title": "Govt offers startups up to ₹50 cr for new drug discovery under pharma scheme",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/15/govt-offers-startups-up-to-50-cr-for-new-drug-discovery-under-pharma",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-10-15T13:26:37.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Live Mint",
    "slug": "live-mint",
    "url": "https://www.livemint.com/news/govt-offers-startups-up-to-50-cr-for-new-drug-discovery-under-pharma-scheme-11792064919759.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "The Indian government has opened up a new funding round for startups and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the pharmaceutical and MedTech sectors, offering up to ₹50 crore each for new drug discovery. The Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma & MedTech (PRIP) scheme has a total budget of ₹5,000 crore, with ₹700 crore reserved for establishing Centers of Excellence at seven National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education & Research (NIPERs) and ₹4,200 crore allocated to boost investments in the R&D ecosystem. The second call for funding, launched on Thursday, aims to support high-potential research and innovation in three priority areas: new medicines, complex generics and biosimilars, and novel medical devices. The newly-created Discovery Track under this round is specifically designed to address funding gaps for small firms transitioning from basic laboratory research to advanced experimental stages, offering larger and sustained support for indigenous NCE and NBE drug-discovery programs.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}