Public, private partnership critical for leading innovation in life science: Dr Jitendra

Jammu, Nov 21: Union Minister of State in PMO Dr Jitendra Singh Friday said that public private partnership was critical for leading innovation in life-sciences.

He was addressing the GISICON 2025 conference at ASCOMS, Sidhra.

Dr Jitendra, who is also the Union Minister of State (independent charge) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences besides Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, said, the PPP model in the field of medicine and life sciences would help in creating a sustained ecosystem for research and innovation in the country.

The two-day conference of Gastrointestinal Infections Society of India’s (GISICON) is being organized on the theme “Brain Gut Axis: Two Lane expressway” with participation of doctors and researchers from leading medical institutions from various parts of the country.

While lauding the efforts of the organizers Dr Jitendra said that organizing a conference of such a scale in Jammu by a non –government body was a welcome step for promoting research culture in the UT. He said that the demarcation of public and private sector was a thing of the past and now the era of collaboration and joint research was making its way into various sectors including Life sciences.

He added, “We need to adjust to this new alignment so as to provide inclusive healthcare services to the public.”

Dr Jitendra said that in various sectors like space, atomic energy and earth sciences, the private sector was already playing a crucial role for driving innovation and now is making its way in the field of medicine, biotechnology and life sciences.

“With developments in recent years in the field of life sciences research we have been able to bring India out of the slumber and are making it future ready so that India is no longer known as a late initiator in research and innovation,” he said.

The Minister remarked that for India to make a mark at a global level there were two prerequisites.

“Firstly, we need to be consistent and secondly we need to make landmark progress in the related fields. We can’t fall back on laurels of yesterday to carve out a niche for India in the future at a global stage.”

Dr Jitendra also referred to India’s first indigenous antibiotic, Nafithromycin, and the successful gene therapy trials for hemophilia published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

He emphasised for greater public private collaboration in the field of medicine saying that such collaboration would help sustain research and provide an ecosystem for innovation in a sustainable way for future generations.

Later, the Minister felicitated Dr MS Khuroo, Former Director SKIMS Soura who was the keynote speaker at the conference. The two-day conference has an enlightening line up of sessions on holistic healthcare, Gut microbiome in health and disease, Parkinson and Gut, Neuromodulation and Gut-Brain axis, FMT in liver, etc., with a galaxy of speakers from leading medical institutions from various parts of the country.

Dr Pawan Malhotra, Principal-Director, ASCOMS, Swami Prem Vivekanand ji, president ASCOMS Society and Patron in chief, Dr Bela Mahajan, HoD Microbiology, ASCOMS, Dr Anil Gupta, HOD, Medicine, ASCOMS were present at the conference among other researchers, doctors and academicians. The Gastrointestinal Infection Society of India was established in 2007 with the objective of disseminating information, promoting research and collaboration related to gastrointestinal problems.