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BENGALURU: Twelve Indian startups and research institutions have been selected for funding and mentoring under a joint India-UK programme to develop technologies aimed at tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the environment, an increasingly recognised public health challenge.The winners were announced under the 2025-26 call of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms’ (C-CAMP) programme on AMR in the environment, supported by the UK govt’s Global AMR Innovation Fund (Gamrif)The selected projects cover technologies to detect, prevent and treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria and antibiotic residues in soil, water, wastewater and biomedical waste. Each project is eligible for funding of up to £170,000 (about Rs 2 crore), besides incubation support, mentoring, technology access and networking opportunities to help translate laboratory research into commercial products.The latest cohort increases the number of innovations supported under the India AMR Innovation Hub (IAIH) to 21. The hub is the innovation arm of the GoI’s National Action Plan on AMR and is anchored by C-CAMP under the guidance of the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser.Among the selected innovations are rapid diagnostic platforms that can detect antibiotic-resistant genes in environmental samples, systems for monitoring wastewater, technologies to treat hospital sewage, solutions to disinfect biomedical waste, and tools to reduce antibiotic use in aquaculture. The winners include startups such as GenePath Diagnostics, Ampligene, Module Innovations, Meril Diagnostics, Teora Lifesciences, Aventiq Innovations, Biosustain Labs and Openwater. in, along with researchers from IIT Roorkee, IIT Madras, CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory and BioNEST at Banaras Hindu University.Taslimarif Saiyed, director-CEO, C-CAMP, said the new technologies would help detect, prevent and treat environmental sources that contribute to the build-up of drug-resistant pathogens and antibiotic contamination.“These technologies will enable detection, prevention and treatment of soil, water, air and other sources to eliminate the risk of resistant pathogen build-up and leaching of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals in the environment,” he said.Principal Scientific Adviser Prof AK Sood said the fight against antimicrobial resistance must extend beyond discovering new drugs and address environmental causes. “C-CAMP has identified environmental causes and lack of contextual solutions for the environment to be the crucial missing pieces in our AMR response,” he said, adding that the innovations would receive a global platform through the India-UK partnership.Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria and other microbes evolve to withstand medicines designed to kill them, making infections harder to treat. Environmental contamination from antibiotics and resistant microbes is increasingly recognised as a key driver of the problem.
