Mbarara University of Science and Technology, PHARMBIOTRAC Incubation Center in partnership with CamTech Uganda has yet admitted a new cohort II of incubatees totalling to 15 teams of start-up companies (that’s 15 new innovations). This adds to the already 15 teams of innovations that enrolled in cohort I last year doubling the number of innovations under incubation at PHARMBIOTRAC to 30.
Notable with the recent list of incubatees is the number of MUST students most especially from the department of pharmaceutical sciences and their alumni, faculty medicine that have dominated the product innovation hurdle. Out of the 15 innovations, about 4 accounting for 26.7 % were led by pharmaceutical scientists, 2 accounting for 13.3 % were led by MSc Pharmacognosy students, 2 led by PhD graduates under PHARMBIOTRAC, one (6.7%) led by MUST staff and the rest (40 %) were taken up by the private sector each led by innovators from various disciplines. Pharmaceutical scientists are special graduates of MUST focusing on drug discovery, development and manufacturing.
They are not pharmacists who in the current pharmaceutical industrial paradigm shift are patient focused and complementing other professions (medical doctors, medical lab scientist, nurses, and others) in the clinical care. As MUST celebrates 10 years of training pharm scientists this year, it is clear that the scientists are on the right track considering their efforts in the drug development and manufacturing sector.
The current innovations by pharmaceutical scientists and others under cohort II incubation mainly include herbal medicines, natural cosmetics/ cosmeceuticals and beverages. PHARMBIOTRAC in partnership with CamTech Uganda uses 15 – step incubation ecosystem to guide this incubation process. Briefly, these stages/ steps cover: application, scientific writing workshop, project qualification review, prototyping, regulation, Intellectual Property (IP), business clinic, commercialization and among others.
In an effort to ensure that these innovations succeed in the market, PHARMBIOTRAC awards seed grants ranging from USD 2000 to 5000 for each group. This financial support is aimed at enabling the incubatees acquire raw and packaging materials or reagents, register their companies and trademarks for the innovations, facilitate prototyping phase which includes development and optimization of product quality attributes to meet regulatory and consumer requirements, payment of product certification fees to regulatory bodies and among others.
PHARMBIOTRAC also organizes training workshops for its incubatees to learn and expose them to various areas including product regulation, company registration, Intellectual Property (IP), business management, and etc. The current 5-day workshop for orientation of the new cohort (July 11 – 17, 2022) attracted technical facilitators from Jena Herbals Ltd, CURAD (The Consortium of enhancing University Responsiveness to Agribusiness Development Ltd), and Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB). The incubatees acquired skills and knowledge in a wide range of areas:
- Jena Herbals Ltd – Natural Product Development and Manufacture (Herbal medicines, nutraceuticals and beverages); Current Good Manufacturing Practices for Herbal Industries
- CURAD – Business/ Company Development and Management
- URSB – Intellectual Property (IP) and Business/Company Registration
For more details on the different innovations under incubation at PHARMBIOTRAC, visit pharmbiotrac@must.ac.ug