Department of Pharmaceuticals Opens a PRIP 'Discovery Track' Offering Up to Rs 50 Crore per Project

5 October 2026National

The Department of Pharmaceuticals, under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, launched a new Discovery Track under the PRIP scheme on 5 October 2026, offering startups and MSMEs up to Rs 50 crore per project with a mandatory 25% co-funding share. The track funds early-stage work from TRL 1–3 up to TRL 6, covering new chemical entities and new biological entities, to close the gap between laboratory discovery and commercial development where Indian drug research has historically stalled. PRIP was launched on 17 August 2023 with a Rs 5,000 crore outlay, and its first call approved 41 projects worth about Rs 1,600 crore.

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PRIP stands for Promotion of Research and Innovation in Pharma-MedTech Sector and is run by the Department of Pharmaceuticals | India is the world's largest supplier of generic medicines by volume and a leading vaccine producer | Technology Readiness Levels run on a 1-to-9 scale originally devised at NASA to grade technology maturity

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