The Pharm-Biotechnology and Traditional Medicine Center (PHARMBIOTRAC) is established at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda with a major focus on strengthening the incubation of traditional medicines and biopharmaceuticals at Mbarara University of Science and Technology Regional Centre for Innovations and Technology Transfer. The PHARMBIOTRAC Incubation Center is aimed at supporting academicians, students, and innovators to start-up businesses, develop, register, and commercialize trademarks, copyrights, and patents in an attempt to transform universities as major drivers of the regional economy. The main objectives of the center are to:

1. attract students, faculty, knowledge holders and entrepreneurs into incubation teams and mentor them to sustainably commercialize innovations in Traditional medicine and pharma biotechnology
2. attain the certification of the centers production unit and products by relevant bodies in the region to enable their commercialisation
3. build start-up businesses and networks for commercialization of TM and pharm biotechnology products in the region
4. disseminate and commercialize research outputs of the incubation center to the public who are the end beneficiaries for the improvement of their health and productivity

The center began its incubation activities in 2020 and has managed to incubate thirty (30) teams of innovators with each establishing itself as a start-up company. PHARMBIOTRAC uses 15 – step incubation ecosystem which covers: application, scientific writing workshop, project qualification review, prototyping, regulation, Intellectual Property (IP), business clinic, commercialization, and among others. In an effort to support the innovations, PHARMBIOTRAC awarded seed grants ranging from USD 2000 to 5000 for each group. This financial support was for facilitating the incubatees to optimize their prototypes for regulatory approval and register their companies and trademarks for the innovations. The incubator has a team of technical experts including its own staff purposely recruited to spearhead the innovation process, and also from its partners (government agencies including National Drug Authority, Uganda National Bureau of Standards, Uganda Registration Services Bureau; Private industries, and entrepreneurs) to offer technical, social and mentorship support to the incubatees.

Download Brief about current Incubatees (6.3MB)

Call for COHORT 2 intake
Call for Incubatees PAP 2022
Application Form PAP 2022
Link to the call website PAP2022