It's business and pleasure

Dr KK Narayanan's passion for agriculture and good entrepreneurial skills has resulted in Metahelix gaining a significant traction in the agribiotech field. It aims at becoming one of the leading agri-biotech company in the next few years.

From taking up a temporary job of that of an assistant at a Krishi Vignana Kendra to becoming the managing director of Metahelix, Dr KK Narayanan has come a long way.

Basically hailing from an agricultural family in Moncombu, a village near Alleppey in Kerala, he had always wanted to do something which would practically help him be closely associated with farming.

Armed with a B.Sc in Agriculture and a Masters degree in Plant Breeding and Genetics from the Kerala Agricultural University, Dr Narayanan had a short stint with the Kerala State Department of Agriculture. He was posted to Wyanad district as a Junior Agricultural Officer and remained in service for only six months. The experience, he recalls, was wonderful - his interactions with farmers, putting his theoretical knowledge into practice etc etc.

His passion for agriculture drove him to pursue his higher studies and he went on to do his Phd in the same subject from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University at Coimbatore, between 1985 and 1988.

He joined the SPIC Science Foundation (SSF) on the understanding that he would be allowed to do his post-doctoral research which he eventually did at the Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University under a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship between 1989 and 1990. This was the major attraction for Dr Narayanan to join the SPIC Science Foundation at that time when there were several other job offers including one from the Rubber Board.

At the SPIC Science Foundation, he intitially worked as a scientist, a senior scientist and then as group leader. A bigger opportunity came knocking towards the end of 1998 and he joined the Monsanto Research Centre in Bangalore as programme leader for crop transformation and functional genomics. Always having wanted to do something on his own, Dr Narayanan's wide exposure to topics global in nature, extensive travel and networking with experts in the field of agriculture only strengthened his conviction that technology exchange that had been happening at Monsanto, could be used profitably in India.

This made him initiate talks with people who mattered and in one of their informal meetings, they discussed the idea of making available the latest products and services in the bio agriculture sector at an affordable cost.

While Dr KK Narayanan was still working at Monsanto, his friend and colleague Dr Gautham Nadig who had already come out of the organization, did the groundwork to set the ball rolling for the establishment of their company. Soon Dr Narayanan and Gautham Nadig along with three other scientist friends - Ganesh Kishore, Himadri Pakrasi and Suri Venkatachalam, who all had the common vision of harnessing technology to create societal value, joined hands and thus was born Metahelix.

After initial hiccups, the company was registered in December 2000, but was formally launched in July the following year, from a single bedroom apartment provided by Gautham Nadig's mother-in-law. While they had ample intellectual capital, funds had to be raised from other sources. They were lucky to find an angel investor in co-founder of software major Infosys, NS Raghavan who offered them Rs 6.5 crore in venture capital. With the availability of funds, they moved to a bigger place in VV Puram in South Bangalore.

The growth came fast and to accommodate the increasing numbers and facilities required, Metahelix acquired land at the KIADB Industrial Park in Bommasandra on the outskirts of Bangalore to set up its own lab and green house facilities in mid-2002. It also developed a 15-acre field research farm in South Bangalore to expand the genetic improvement activities. As part of a strategic expansion program, Metahelix also started a subsidiary seed company, Dhaanya, towards the end of 2002.

Apart from being the managing director of Metahelix, Dr KK Narayanan plays a significant role at the Association of Biotechnology-led Enterprises (ABLE). Initially he joined as a member and now he heads the special interest group on bio-agri sector at ABLE. Dr Narayanan believes in working closely with the biotech industry and is keen on seeing the birth of more bio-agri companies in the country. He feels the activities of ABLE need to be strengthened. It should become a powerful guide for the biotech industry and it should in many ways promote responsible biotechnology.

From the start, the company has concentrated on acquiring a revenue stream, in addition to developing its own products and IP positions. In addition to contract research for several Indian and foreign customers, Metahelix also focuses on trait development in crops through genetic transformation, where the returns come only in the long term. The company has adopted a novel method of raising working capital for such activities by getting the customer to pay for the product upfront. It has major customers and runs on cash flows.

Metahelix plans to patent its products. The company is awaiting the introduction of the product patent regime in 2005 to take full advantage of technological breakthroughs, the latest being insect protection technology. It will file for preliminary trials next year and expects to come out with its first product by 2007. Metahelix also plans to start production of protein biologicals, diagnostics and paralely launch marketing and sales operations for protein biologicals. It is also looking at first round of investment to facilitate further expansion.

Today, Dr KK Narayanan and Dr Gautham Nadig are actively involved in running the company. Their individual expertise along with the experience of the other founders has helped Metahelix go up the path of growth.

Namratha Jagtap