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"India offers significant market
opportunities,"
Dr Harry S Rathore, President and Country Head, Lonza India Pvt Ltd
In a free wheeling interview, Dr Harry S Rathore, President and Country
Head, Lonza India Pvt Ltd, talks about the Lonza's initiatives in India
especially in biosimilars along with a sneek peek into its product offerings to
the Indian market
Can you elaborate on Lonza's Indian
Operations which was set up recently?
We are expanding our business in India. Currently we are
focusing on five major areas –sales of the intermediates for the production of
APIs used in the ARVs (anti-retroviral) formulations for access-to-medicines
markets under PEPFAR. Indian companies such as Aurobindo, Hetero, and Astrix are
our customers for these ARV intermediates, in the second area, we are expanding
our services and products offerings in the area of Cell Discovery and Molecular
Biology. Recently Lonza acquired Amaxa, a market leader in gene transfection
into primary cells. Shortly Amaxa product offerings will be available to R&D
scientists engaged in biologics research in India, then we have sales and
business development of disinfectant formulations for hospitals and pharma clean
rooms under the Lonzaguard brand, another arena is building the
external-manufacturing-network of Indian companies to outsource production of
small molecules to compliment internal capacities of our API plants worldwide.
Nutrition ingredients is the other major area where we will soon be exploring
marketing opportunities in India. The middle class in India is growing and
health and wellness are becoming serious concerns of the Indian families. We see
opportunities for our nutritional supplements such as Carnipure especially in
functional foods and dietary supplements.
Acquiring Cambrex's two businesses was a
major deal for Lonza's Life Sciences division in India. Is the company now
targeting the API business of Cambrex?
Yes, in 2007, we acquired two businesses from
Cambrex--Bioproducts which we renamed Lonza Bioscience, and the microbial
biopharmaceuticals business which was integrated into the Lonza
Biopharmaceuticals business after the acquisition. Now we are not looking at its
API business. We have our own small molecules API (active pharmaceutical
ingredients) business.
Lonza's focus
Lonza, which is headquartered in
Basel, Switzerland and is listed on the SWX Swiss Exchange, is a major
player offering products and services spanning its customers' needs
from research to final product manufacture. Lonza is also into
production and support of active pharmaceutical ingredients both
chemically as well as biotechnologically. The company has strong
capabilities in large and small molecules, peptides, amino acids and
niche bioproducts which play an important role in the development of
novel medicines and healthcare products. In addition to this, Lonza is
a leader in cell-based research, endotoxin detection and cell therapy
manufacturing and a provider of value chemical and biotech ingredients
to the nutrition, hygiene, preservation, agro and personal care
markets.
In the fiscal year ending December
2007, Lonza delivered strong performance through portfolio changes
along with growth in biopharmaceuticals and life science ingredients.
The sales were up by 25.6 percent, EBITDA was up 40.9 percent to CHF
682 million, EBITDA margins rose by 2.6 percent points to 23.8 percent
of sales and net income grew by 51.3 percent to CHF 301 million
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How is Lonza cashing on to the biosimilar
opportunity?
Biogenerics or biosimilars could be a huge opportunity for
Indian companies. However there are some initial hic-ups. The regulatory pathway
is still not well defined in Europe and the US for biosimilars. Contrary to
biogenerics the small molecules generics are relatively easy because they are
chemically similar and bioequivalent. In the case of biosimilars, the innovators
argue that "the process makes the product" so if you are using
different cell lines and different non-infringing process you are getting a
different product. That makes life difficult for regulators as to how to enact
regulatory guidelines to approve biosimilars. However, momentum is on their side
as governments across the globe wish to reduce soaring medical costs. Hence,
regulatory agencies are working on enacting the regulations in Europe and
possibly in the US. EPO has already been approved for several markets. The
domestic markets in India for biosimilars is relatively small because of the
affordability of the patients but then we do see that a number of Indian
companies have biosimilar programs at different stages of the development and
they are looking out for partnerships. Lonza here has the knowledge and
expertise of building large-scale biopharmaceutical plants vis-à-vis experience
in manufacturing recombinant proteins and antibodies on the industrial scale for
regulated markets. Our GS Gene Expression System (GS: glutamine synthetase)
coupled with the application of the Aggresolve technology from the recently
acquired Zyentia Ltd in Cambridge (UK) puts us in the realm of production of
antibodies and recombinant proteins.
Is the India business model similar to
that of the parent company considering that the dynamics are different in India?
It is pretty much the same. Lonza is much focused on the
customers' R&D and manufacturing needs in clearly defined life sciences
markets. Our endeavors are to offer our services to innovator customers
throughout the life-cycle of their product leading to generics. India offers
significant market opportunities for Lonza's products and services.
Any strategic collaborations to look out
for in the future?
We built a strong rapport with many of our customers and
suppliers in India. Now we wish to transform few of these relationships to
strategic collaborations. Hygiene and disinfectant formulations, tissue
acquisition and cell isolations, production of biotherapeutic media, and R&D
services in biopharmaceuticals are some of the areas where we see possibilities
of collaborations and business expansion in India.
Nayantara Som
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