India Pharma Outlook Team | Wednesday, 23 July 2025
The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has released a flagship program for establishing a countrywide network of artificial intelligence (AI)-based image biobanks to spur enhanced medical screening, diagnostics, and precision medicine in India.
The department is soliciting proposals from private agencies, research organizations, and NGOs to set up Image Informatic Centres. These centres will acquire, store, and retrieve annotated diagnostic images as well as clinical metadata. The curated databases will become building blocks of datasets for the development of sophisticated AI tools for medical imaging.
The DBT will fund 10 multi-institutional projects, to a maximum duration of five years and a grant of Rs. 15 crore. Grants to private R&D institutions will be limited to Rs. 2.5 crore, as per guidelines. The grant will include infrastructure, equipment, manpower, consumables, and other project activities.
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Highest priority will be assigned to proposals with the aim of generating high-quality, expert-annotated healthy and diseased state datasets, rather than image aggregation or algorithm development. Imaging biobanks will contain rich metadata including demographics, lifestyle, genetic status, clinical examination, and outcomes, embedded in a secure, accessible IT architecture.
These repositories will enable AI-based prediction, diagnosis, and prognosis of cancers, cardiovascular conditions, and neurological diseases. In the long term, plans are for integrating these repositories with other biobanks, eventually creating a national network that will be accessed via simple-to-use online portals.
Letters of Interest must be submitted by August 31, 2025. The program will make precise diagnosis accessible to everyone and facilitate early disease detection, particularly in underserved areas.
