India, Oct. 1 -- In October 2023, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation granted marketing authorisation to NexCAR19, India's first indigenously developed CD19-targeted CAR-T cell therapy, produced by ImmunoACT, a company incubated at IIT Bombay under SINE. It was the culmination of roughly a decade of work between IIT Bombay and Tata Memorial Centre, built on a Phase I/II pivotal trial in 60 patients that reported around 70 per cent overall response rate. Within a year the therapy was reaching patients at more than 30 hospitals across more than 10 cities.

Here is the awkward part. A cell therapy facility needs process development scientists, cleanroom operators trained in aseptic technique, QC analysts who can run flow cytometr...