UST & IIT Madras Incubation Cell Tie Up to Boost Healthcare & Life Sciences Startups

The partnership aims to strengthen startup development through structured collaboration between industry and academia.

UST has signed a memorandum of understanding with the IIT Madras Incubation Cell to foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and research-driven solutions in healthcare and life sciences.

The partnership aims to strengthen startup development through structured collaboration between industry and academia.

IIT Madras Incubation Cell is a deep-tech startup hub and an umbrella organisation supporting innovation at IIT Madras. It currently hosts a portfolio of over 500 deep-tech startups across sectors, including medtech, biotech, AI, manufacturing, space, climate tech, mobility, and sustainability, with a combined valuation exceeding $6 billion.

Under the agreement, the collaboration will focus on joint programmes, engagement with incubated startups, and industry partnerships in high-impact domains.

The framework is designed to identify high-potential startups, provide mentorship and targeted funding, expand pilots and proofs-of-concept, form strategic collaborations, and create go-to-market opportunities.

As part of the partnership, UST and IIT Madras Incubation Cell, along with Pfizer as knowledge partner and AWS as technology partner, recently conducted the Pitch to Win: Pharma 4.0 Edition innovation challenge.

The initiative received over 90 startup applications from 32 cities, reflecting growing momentum in healthcare and life sciences entrepreneurship.

The top ten finalists received a month-long mentorship programme from UST and presented their solutions before a jury at the final held at IIT Madras Incubation Cell. Nucleo-Vir Therapeutics emerged as the winner, followed by ChemBioSens as first runner-up and LN Infosphere Tech Transformers as second runner-up.

The winners received cash awards of ₹1,25,000, ₹75,000, and ₹50,000, respectively. UST will also offer combined conditional funding support of up to ₹45 lakh, along with go-to-market and additional support.

Commenting on the partnership, Manu Gopinath, President, UST, said, “With IITMIC’s incubation ecosystem and access to cutting-edge research, we not just back start-ups, but also nurture founders and accelerate research-driven ideas to build a pipeline of solutions that can transform businesses, communities, and society at large.”

Tamaswati Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer, IIT Madras Incubation Cell, said the collaboration reflects a shared vision to advance the deep-tech innovation landscape, particularly in healthcare and life sciences.

By combining IIT Madras Incubation Cell’s cross-domain innovation capabilities with UST’s global reach, industry partnerships, and mentorship, the tie-up aims to provide a scalable platform to take next-generation technologies from lab to market.

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