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Bio News Syngene forges alliance with DuPont Crop Protection
Syngene International, a subsidiary of Biocon Ltd, announced its agreement as alliance partner with DuPont Crop Protection. Syngene has been a preferred research service provider to DuPont Crop Protection primarily in the field of discovery chemistry and biology and will now provide integrated research services, through its “one box” model, covering a broad range of R&D technical capabilities to support DuPont’s discovery pipeline.
“Today we recognize our long-standing relationship and take the next step to further advance our collaboration,” said Julia R Wheeler, R&D director, DuPont Crop Protection.
Goutam Das, CEO Syngene, said, ”We are excited at the prospect of supporting DuPont across the discovery and development value chain in an integrated manner. This signifies our competencies in providing innovation-based integrated research services from early stage discovery to final production.”

DuPont Crop Protection appoints GVK BIO as strategic alliance partner
GVK Biosciences is appointed by DuPont Crop Protection as a strategic alliance partner for discovery chemistry services in India. Both the companies have been working together for more than five years and a dedicated discovery chemistry team is in place to work in DuPont’s various R&D initiatives.
“Based on our valued relationship of the past years, we are ready to advance that to a new level of technical collaboration with GVK Biosciences,” said Julia Wheeler, R&D director, DuPont Crop Protection.
“DuPont is one of our large and long-standing customers and is now taking our relationship to the next level based on consistent delivery with speed and quality. Over the years GVK Biosciences has tackled projects that vary in degree of complexity in crop protection and has built a niche expertise to serve the agro-science community,” said Manni Kantipudi, president, GVK Biosciences.

MakroCare opens new office in Tokyo
MakroCare, the US-based global clinical services firm, which provides clinical research support services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries has opened its new international office in Tokyo, Japan.
MakroCare is the first CRO with an office in India to open an office in Japan. To meet the growing needs and to serve its clients in Japan, MakroCare has chosen Tokyo as it’s strategic base in Japan. MakroCare has offices in the US (New Jersey, Illinois and Pennsylvania), Asia (India), and Europe (Frankfurt).

Biocon wins BioSingapore award
Biocon was honored as the Best Listed Company 2009 in the biotechnology field in the Asia-Pacific region by BioSingapore. The 2009 BioSingapore Asia-Pacific Biotechnology Awards were presented at the BioSingapore Awards gala dinner held during BioMedical Asia 2009 at Singapore on March 17, 2009. This is the second year that BioSingapore has recognized biotech leaders from Asia-Pacific through its awards.
Biocon was adjudged the best listed company based on significant market capital, sound business model and excellent management team.
“To be felicitated by peers in the biotechnology sphere in the Asia-Pacific region is a great honor. We have always believed at Biocon that the difference lies in our DNA and striving towards affordable innovation is our mantra. We are delighted to be recognized for our achievements by BioSingapore” remarked Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD, Biocon.
Every year, BioSingapore receives nominations from biotechnology industry associations (BNAP), industry peers, academics and institutions across Asia- Pacific region for the most outstanding companies or individuals in various categories. The nominees are judged by a panel of distinguished leaders in the field.

Polyclone Bioservices to focus on genotyping
Bangalore-based Polyclone Bioservices has added genotyping into its arsenal of technologies and expertise. Polyclone would focus on genotyping-based research in the diagnostic and agricultural sectors and offer services to both Indian and global customers.
The global market for genotyping is estimated to be around $700 million. While Polyclone would be amongst the few companies in India to offer genotyping services, its value-add to its customers would be the packaging of bioinformatics services to analyze the mutation data generated by genotyping systems, which is critical to make sense of the data and to take informed decisions.
Polyclone plans genotyping research projects to identify and characterize mutations specific to Indian races to develop diagnostic assays for cancers of national importance. Apart from research, Polyclone would offer services for detection of cancer, infectious and genetic diseases to diagnostic labs and hospitals through a centralized setup.
In agriculture, Polyclone would take up select projects in plant genotyping for identification of molecular markers for marker assisted selection and abiotic stress resistant cultivar development.

PREMAS Biotech launches human drug metabolism enzymes
PREMAS Biotech has launched its suite of recombinant human cytochrome P450 isozymes. These microsomes contain human CYP450 isozyme and human NADPH oxido reductase hence offering significantly higher specific activity and performance. These isozymes will be expressed in yeast which means that these recombinant human enzymes mimic their native forms and ensures biological and pharmacologically active isoforms. PREMAS will be using their proprietary vectors for optimized expression.

The Mathworks introduces Simbiology 3
The MathWorks has introduced SimBiology 3, a tool for modeling, simulating and analyzing biological systems in one integrated, graphical environment. SimBiology 3 provides a more intuitive and flexible environment for population pharmacokinetic (PK) modeling and analysis.
SimBiology 3 includes a new PK model wizard that offers the ease-of-use of a built-in library without the limitation of pre-defined models. The model wizard automatically generates PK models by specifying only compartment number, route of administration and method of elimination. Users can also import clinical or experimental data, preprocess, visualize and calculate statistics on the data. Population fits can then be performed using methods such as non-linear mixed effects modeling.
“SimBiology 3 answers an industry-wide call for increased usability and flexibility in population PK modeling,” said Kristen Zannella, biotech and pharmaceutical industry marketing manager at The MathWorks. “Those users familiar with SimBiology, along with the pharmacokinetic community who has been searching for a more adaptable tool to meet their needs, can now accomplish more in a shorter amount of time with an expanded and intuitive toolset.”

Sigma-Aldrich streamlines stem cell research portfolio
Sigma-Aldrich has launched an online web portal that provides researchers with immediate access to its extensive portfolio of industry-leading products developed specifically for advanced stem cell research. The new portal features over 1,100 unique and highly-focused products that are expected to support every step of the stem cell research workflow, from isolation, characterization, expansion, differentiation and functional profiling to in-vitro or in-vivo tracking.
The portal also provides access to a robust stem cell biology community and is available at http://www.sigma-aldrich.com/stemcell.