Indian
companies have been of late, recognizing the importance of
product patent and commercialization aspect of their products.
For example, GangaGen and ReGenisis have patented their new
drug for bacteriophasebased products and a novel diagnostic
test to detect genetic defects. In the biopharma segment,
active research is going on in the areas of genomics, proteomics,
pharmacogenomics, stem cell biology, nanobiotechnology and
other frontier areas. The product development focus is on
new generation vaccines, diagnostic kits and therapeutics.
India
is becoming the destination for clinical trials, contract
research and contract manufacturing. The global players are
scaling up their clinical data management centers in India.
Apart from launching new vaccines in India, GSK Biologicals
has been shifting its divisions of clinical research and development
of vaccines so as to make India a global hub for clinical
trials. Biocon's subsidiary, Syngene International, has entered
into a contract research agreement with the R&D arm of
Novartis to conduct research to support new drug discovery
and development.
However,
though India is emerging as the biotech destination, it is
still not viewed favorably by Venture Capitalists (VCs). The
business models followed by Indian companies are different
from those of the American and European companies, where the
biotech startups are purely dependent on venture capital investments.
Although India is receiving funds in the life sciences sector,
it is still low in the biotech startups, specifically in the
modern biotech. Some of the discouraging factors for the VCs
are lack of proper infrastructure for biological R&D,
lack of seed capital, long gestation period and failure rates
of product commercialization. |
