BioSpectrumIndia - the business of biotech

Advanced Enzyme Technologies Limited is an industrial enzyme manufacturer and caters to a worldwide market like Europe, America, China and India. The company specializes in providing customized, eco-safe solutions across various industries. The key areas that Advanced Enzymes focus on are human healthcare, animal healthcare, textiles, leather and grain processing. Being an R&D focused company; Advanced Enzyme Technologies has several patents and novel applications to its credit. AETL clocked biotech revenue of Rs 88.60 crore for fiscal 2008-09 as against Rs 69.30 crore in 2007-08, registering 42 percent growth. About 50-60 percent of the company's export caters the needs of the US market. The company also spends around 10-12 percent of their total turnover on R&D. Advanced Enzyme Technologies is expecting a stable growth in the current fiscal with exports growing, especially in the area of bulk enzymes.

GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK) recorded total biotech sales of Rs 83.48 crore in 2008-09 as against Rs 80.40 crore in 2007-08. Vaccine has been a key growth area for GSK in the Indian market. GlaxoSmithKline in India is an affiliate of GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, headquartered in Rixensart, Belgium. Belgium is the center of all GlaxoSmithKline's activities in the field of vaccine research, development and production. GSK's India product portfolio includes prescription medicines and vaccines. GSK also offers a range of vaccines against hepatitis A, hepatitis B, invasive disease caused by H, influenzae, chickenpox, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus etc. As of now, GSK markets 12 types of vaccines in the Indian market. GSK has two manufacturing units in India, located at Nashik and Thane as well as a clinical development center in Bangalore.

Vimta Labs is a contract research and testing organization that has a track record of serving several market leaders across the globe. Vimta has a team of 621 professionals comprising 466 scientists in various disciplines such as chemistry, pharma, medicine, microbiology, molecular biology and informatics. The team is slated to double in next three years. Vimta is a multi-site organization with more than 300,000 sq.ft. world class laboratory facilities. The company recorded a total business revenue of Rs 81.60 crore posting 6 percent growth over that in 2007-08.

Ankur seeds clocked revenue of Rs 80.35 crore in Bt cotton seed sales for fiscal year of 2008-09 as against Rs 75 crore in 2007-08. The company has released new cotton hybrids like Bollgard II during the fiscal year of 2008-09, other hybrids like Ankur Jai BG II and Ankur 3028 BG II were released for northern, central and southern India. Ankur Seeds got permission from the regulators to import the transgenic cotton seed material containing drought tolerance genes. The company had funded an American University for developing these transgenic lines. Ankur Seeds has successfully developed cytoplasmic genetic male sterility that will have long term benefits in brinjal hybrid seed production technology. The company is planning to enter the regulatory trials of Bt brinjal that were developed at its facilities using proprietary gene construct.

For the past four decades, Wockhardt's forte has been its pharmaceutical and biotechnology business which is backed by research-oriented technology. Wockhardt's pioneering efforts in biotechnology led to the launch of three successful products in the Indian market: Biovac-B (hepatitis B vaccine), Wepox (erythropoietin), and Wosulin (recombinant insulin). The company has also made a breakthrough by launching a novel long-acting insulin, Glargine. Wockhardt is prepared to tap biogenerics opportunity, which is powered by its vision to introduce one biopharmaceutical product every year. Wockhardt is a listed entity altogether with its R&D locations in Wockhardt, Aurangabad and Mumbai; Negma Laboratories, France; Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals, Illinois, USA; Wockhardt, UK and Pinewood, Ireland.

Krishidhan Seeds Limited clocked a total turnover of Rs 63.25 crore in FY 2008-09 as compared to Rs 40 crore in 2007-08 from Bt cotton. Krishidhan's R&D spend is about six percent of its total sales covering both the basic and applied research in agribiotechnology. Although the company decided to enter into GM crops in 2001, it was able to launch its products in 2006 due to delay in regulatory approvals and procedures. Krishidhan Seeds is using the Monsanto technology and was one of the three companies to launch Bollgard II, which was more effective than Bollgard I, in 2006-07. Krishidhan is also in the process of looking at other technologies that would control bollworm complex and other pests. At present it is mainly focusing on promoting Bollgard II technology with desired tolerance to sucking pest complex in its elite hybrid.

Genesis of the company goes back to the time when Dr Pradip K Desai present chairman conceived the idea of a a start-up company in 1972, as the Desai Laboratories. The main goal of Span Diagnostics was to indigenously develop and manufacture a comprehensive range of ready-made diagnostic reagents needed by clinical pathology laboratories. Span Diagnostics is giving emphasis to in-house R&D to develop more and more products, keeping the customer needs in mind and quality under constant vigil. The initial efforts yielded success and Span became a private limited company in 1981.The company then went public in 1994, to bring in more resources and expand further. Today, Span has a wide range of quality products and dedicated services and the products are manufactured at its state-of-the-art plants in India and France, strictly following WHO-cGMP norms.

Nath Biogene offers scores of new crop varieties, hybrid seeds, growth supplements and related services to farmers from all over the country. Nath Biogene's products and services have changed the demand dynamics in the country. The company made substantial investments to upgrade R&D activities to international standards. Reaching the Indian farmers with rigorously tested seed-embedded technologies for genetic enhancement is the prime goal of Nath Biogene. The company forges linkages with some of the best-known institutions within the country and abroad to enhance the research activities. Collaboration with the prestigious Biotechnology Research Institute of Chinese of Academy of Agricultural Sciences is one among them.

Serum International, a subsidiary of the Serum Group, has clocked revenue of Rs 46 crore for fiscal year 2008-09. Serum Institute of India sets up Serum International Ltd to market research-based products from Serono, world leaders in fertility products. The Pune-based subsidiary of India's largest manufacturer of vaccines has many acheivements to its credit. Serum International's most talked about milestone was the launch of Pygeum Africanum soft gelatin capsule, Pyginal, for benign prostate hypertrophy (BPH). BPH is an age-related prostate gland problem occurring in males after the age of 40. BPH occurs because of enlargement of the prostate gland which is an important organ of the male reproductive system.

Dr Reddy's Laboratories has clocked revenues of Rs 40 crore for the fiscal year 2008-09 as against Rs 34 crore in 2007-08. The company hopes that its key brand Reditux will be the first in a series of biosimilar products that will revolutionize the affordability of these products for patients in India. Dr Reddy's has shifted its focus to the development of biosimilars, while its long term vision is to develop new biological entities (NBEs) in niche therapeutic areas. In biologics, Dr Reddy's offers two products, Reditux and Grafeel. Otherwise, in total the company is offering 14 anti-cancer drugs, which are not biotech products. Dr Reddy's is the second largest player in oncology in India after Roche. The biotech products of Dr Reddy's are not only focused on oncology and monoclonal antibodies but also in nephrology and autoimmune diseases.

Indovax is engaged in the production of quality poultry biologicals since 1991. The company's research is focused on product development for Indian (tropical) conditions. The company manufactures viral vaccines, inactivated vaccines and bacterins by using SPF eggs and the best quality raw material, sourced from renowned international suppliers. The company enjoys over 40 percent market share in Gumboro vaccine segment that was launched in the 1990s. Indovax's Hydropericardium syndrome vaccine and Fowl cholera vaccine have a similar success story. Last year, Indovax entered into a joint venture with a large European company to produce products critical to a number of biomedical and veterinary procedures, including production of diagnostic kits, reagents, disease diagnosis, biomedical research, and the production of some mammalian, human and avian vaccines.

Wyeth Limited is a subsidiary of the US-based pharmaceutical company, Wyeth. The company clocked estimated revenues of Rs 35 crore (purely from its vaccine business) with its blockbuster vaccine, Prevnar (launched in 2006 in India) having a good amount of the share. Wyeth Limited has a strong presence in oral contraceptives, folic acid and depilatory cream also. It was the first company to launch hormone therapy. In the field of vaccines, Wyeth introduced vaccines against HIB and invasive pneumococcal disease in the country. Enbrel, a breakthrough treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and Rapamune, an immunosuppressant for prevention of rejection after renal transplant, Prevenar, a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and Tygacil, the world's first glycilcycline antibiotic, are among internationally known products launched by Wyeth Limited in India. The company has a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Verna, Goa.

Despite the economic slowdown hitting the country, Aventis Pharma's exports saw a double digit growth and showed a growth performance of 23 percent. The company's expenditure on R&D grows up to 0.51 percent and it employs 2,070 people. The company launched a new prefilled disposable insulin pen, SoloSTAR for use with the 24-hour insulin Lantus. Lantus had shown a growth rate of 30 percent and was also won the prestigious OPPI Marketing Excellence Award. This disposable insulin pen is to be used for the treatment of hyperglycemia in people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Aventis has state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities at Goa and Ankleshwar, where a number of pharmaceutical ingredients and formulations are produced. Both the sites comply with prevailing Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) standards and score highly in terms of performance.

Strand Life Sciences is a premier life science informatics innovation company founded by Dr Vijay Chandru, an academician turned entrepreneur. Strand leverages its core strengths and intellectual property in data mining, predictive modeling, bioinformatics, and computational chemistry to develop products and solutions for drug discovery. Strand Life Sciences is developing a new software solution for the analysis of data from Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) experiments. This new solution incorporates algorithms optimized to process NGS data while focusing on integration with downstream biological analysis. The solution will support most of the applications being performed on NGS platforms. Strand is a member of the bioinformatics software partnership program established by Illumina Inc. to promote data integration and advanced analysis of data from various Illumina products including NGS data.

Lambda Therapeutics works on all aspects of clinical drug development including clinical trials, clinical laboratory, data management, and bioavailability studies. with its head office in Ahmedabad and branches at Mumbai and Chennai; Warsaw, Poland and USA. It has an employee strength of more than 500 members. Past records of the company include having 1,000 BA/BE studies, 20 phase-I studies and 35 phase-II and phase-III clinical trials. In 2008, Lambda Bioanalytical Facility got a GLP certification from Thailand FDA. Lambda has acquired a pharmacovigilance CRO in the UK and a Polish CRO firm, CBK-MPR Pharma. The clinical lab of Lambda also received a CAP accreditation and was accredited by the most prestigious body College of American Pathologists on May 4, 2005. Lambda is one of the five clinical labs in India and the first one in Gujarat to have CAP accreditation.

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