Biocon Group closes FY 2007 at Rs 990 crore

Dr Arun Chandavarkar, COO, Biocon, announced Biocon's financial performance for the financial year ended March 31, 2007. Biocon reported a total income of Rs 990 crore compared to the previous year's business of 793 crore, up by 25 percent. Consolidated revenues from the biopharmaceuticals and enzymes business grew 20 percent to Rs 823 crore from Rs 688 crore, accounting for 83 percent share of the operating revenues in FY 2007. Revenues in the research services and licencing grew by 63 percent to Rs 163 crore from Rs 100 crore, contributing 17 percent to operating revenues in FY 2007. Gaining results from its strong R&D, Biocon increased its R&D revenue expenditure by 86 percent to Rs 38 crore. Q4 FY 07 registered an impressive PAT growth of 15 percent. In FY 2007, Biocon's focus areas have been insulin, branded formulations, investments and technology. Following the success of Insugen in India, it is entering the US market through a marketing company, whose name remained undisclosed. Biocon has been the largest vertical producer of immunosuppressants.

Commenting on the results, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CEO, Biocon, said "Our strategy of building global scale in our products and services businesses has delivered robust profits. This has enabled us to invest incrementally in our innovation led research programs which will deliver attractive shareholder returns in the coming years." In the years ahead, Biocon will continue to make significant investments to progress its innovation pipeline.

Reliance to set up life sciences fund

Reliance Life Sciences, an initiative of Reliance Industries Ltd led by Mukesh Ambani, is exploring the potential of launching a new India-based seed fund for the life sciences industry including biotechnology. In this regard, Reliance Life Sciences has entered into strategic partnership with MPM Capital, a US-based global investment management firm that manages $2.5 billion in assets through its BioVenture Family of venture capital funds and MPM BioEquities public market fund. Investing about $45-50 million in this venture capital, Reliance has become a limited partner in MPM Capital's newest fund – MPM BioVentures IV of $650 million.

Dr William Greene, general partner, MPM Capital, said, "MPM and RLS will explore investments in Indian-based companies with a focus on more conventional pharmaceutical products as well those within novel arenas including molecular diagnostics, biosimilars, and stem cells."

Sharing his views about this initiative, Mukesh Ambani said, "The MPM Capital – Reliance Life Science strategic alliance brings about a new framework for fostering innovation by synergizing enterprise and discovery capabilities outside India with people and development competencies in India. With MPM, we will look in the US and locally for co-investment opportunities."

Dr Greene further said, "We expect the collaborative effort to help Reliance deliver on its own vision of coupling US innovation and entrepreneurship with talent and service delivery in India."

KV Subramaniam, president and CEO, RLS, added, "Central to our vision of building a biotechnology industry in India is the creation of a life sciences ecosystem. This work has been ongoing for a few years, but what we have in place now is only the tip of the iceberg. For example, we've invested significantly in a life sciences campus in India. By investing in competencies and infrastructure, by replicating the approach in other biotech-related disciplines, and by working with MPM, we believe the partnership can enable a vibrant life sciences sector in India."

Parkison's conquered through stem cell therapy

Bangalore-based Manipal Hospital claims to have made a major breakthrough in the treatment of Parkinson's disease utilizing stem cell therapy.

The patient, Andrew Kisana, a US national, was presented before mediapersons at a press conference organized by the management of the Manipal Hospital.

The doctors said that the patient's bone marrow was harvested at the regenerative medicine department and the mesenchymal stem cells were injected into the part of the brain, which was affected because of Parkinson's disease. Kisana has so far received three injections. This was the first time such a major effort was attempted in India for treatment of Parkinson's disease.

Kisana was suffering from the degenerating disorder for 15 years. After undergoing intensive drug therapy, lesion and deep brain stimulation (DBS), he came to Manipal Hospital.

After stem cell treatment last year, he has shown remarkable recovery in his symptoms and has started walking without support. There has also been significant reduction in body tremors. Since the last six months, his medication for Parkinson's disease too has been withdrawn, doctors said. Andrew Kisana himself typed his responses to queries on his laptop. "The successful recovery of the patient would give hope to scores of Parkinson's cases which affects one per cent of the population. The condition largely manifests in cases above 50 years, but there are younger people being affected. Stem cell therapy now gives such patients a new hope. However, we need to observe the long term clinical effects in larger number of patients to decide whether it is primary or secondary or supplementary treatment option for degenerative disorders," said Dr NK Venkataramana, director, Manipal Institute of Neurological Disorders.

The hospital's regenerative medicine department is currently carrying out clinical trials in stem cell therapy in 15 spinal cord injury patients besides researching in the use of stem cells in patients of heart attack and leg ischemia, said Satish Totey, chief scientific officer of Stempeutics Research (the regenerative medicine research arm of the hospital).

Ramesh, a patient with spinal cord injury, was treated with stem cell injection. "After the treatment I am able to pass urine and can move my hands. My sensations have also come back," he said.

The Manipal Hospital would launch a stem cell research centre, which would offer courses in regenerative medicine and treatment, R Basil, CEO of Manipal Health Systems, announced.

Polyclone, Eppendorf launch eprime

Polyclone Bioservices, a company that develops and delivers scientific software applications and services to biopharma, biotech and academic institutions, has announced the launch of its first product Eprime. Eprime is a software application to design primers for qualitative real time PCR studies. It designs PCR primers and probes for SYBR green, Taqman and Molecular Beacon studies and assays. "In the first year, Polyclone is looking to install about 50-100 licenses in India and is jointly working out the pricing models with Eppendorf-both for domestic and global markets," said Navin Kulkarni, CEO, Polyclone Bioservices. Eprime will be sold by Eppendorf along with the latter's PCR systems.

It maybe noted that Polyclone aims to develop platforms that support genomics and proteomics research, high throughput screening assay development for lead discovery and stem cell research. It plans to provide support system to stem cell research and bring out a stem cell validation and Q&A assay for real time PCR by next year too. Polyclone is also involved in cancer research (cervical cancer) and is developing its own micro array for breast cancer, which it hopes to be launch by next year.

AIBA, KOBIOVEN sign MoU

Korea Bio-Venture Association (KOBIOVEN), Seoul and All India Biotech Association (AIBA), New Delhi signed an MoU for mutual exchange and cooperation between the member companies of both Associations. Dr Jong-Sei Park, president of KOBIOVEN and Vivek Singhal, president, AIBA signed the agreement. This is a large range agreement expected ultimately to materialize the growth and development of bioventure enterprises of both nations.

KOBIOVEN and AIBA jointly organized a one-day Bio Road Show in New Delhi to mark the collaboration. Representatives of a large number of Korean bioventure companies like Bioneer, BioMax, BioR&Ds, CellBioTech, Istech, Korean Bio Tech and Indian biotech companies participated in the event. The Korean companies made presentations about their operations and products/technologies, ready for transfer, which created a lot of interest in their Indian counterparts.

USV to start clinical trials on hGH

USV Ltd, the largest manufacturer of Metformin, an anti-diabetic drug, has been working on six recombinant products and two peptides. All are in different stages of development of which two are in late stage of clinical trials.

Prashant Tewari, managing director, USV Ltd, said, "We are expected to complete the pre clinical trials on human growth hormone by end of April and will start the clinical trials from June. We are hoping to introduce this in the market post 2008 along with nesiritide.

He further said, "We have been investing about 7 percent of our sales revenue each year on research and development. At present over 180 scientists with 34 having PhDs and 149 having post graduate degrees are working at our state-of-the-art laboratories. We are constantly on the lookout for alliances of mutual interest benefiting from developments in our laboratories."

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