BioVoice News April 2017 Issue 11 Volume 1 | Page 33

for select vaccines where high perception of clinical benefit will drive increased market penetration. Why don’t we find many more vaccine startups coming up while the market share is mostly held by few players? Both technology and capital requirements are significant barriers to entry for startups in the segment. Most of the current vaccines are technologically very complex and even leading Indian companies with in-house research capacity are leaning on partnerships to gain technology access. Even where a startup has a technology advantage, the c apital requirements are hard to surmount and serve as a significant deterrent. While initial proof of concept funding in the form of non-dilutive grants is now available to innovators, subsequent rounds of funding for clinical validation are hard to access given the continuing paucity of risk capital for biotech product development and the co- funding requirements of grants. BIOVOICENEWS.COM 33