Bharat Biotech to raise Rs 100 crore

City-based Bharat Biotech International Ltd, one of the leading players in the biotech industry in India, will raise Rs 100 crore from a financial investor before the calendar year ends.

The company is also slated to expand the production capacity of it's patented recombinant streptokinase product 'Indokinase' which is used for the treatment of myocardial infarction and heart attacks.

The Rs 35 crore biotech company with about six products under its belt is set to raise the cash more as a strategic ploy to create a war chest of funds, with which it can be better prepared for the World Trade Organisation norms that come into play in 2005. Suchitra Ella, founder-director, Bharat Biotech, told Business Standard that non-resident Indian (NRI) stakeholders in the company along with IDBI, another investor, have given their go ahead to the company to raise close to Rs 100 crore through sale of equity. "This investment will come in from a pure-play financial player and not from a strategic investor," Ella clarified.

"We are already in talks with some players for marketing alliances abroad especially in the regulated markets. This should help us push products like Indokinase into regulated markets like the US where margins are higher than in the domestic market," she said.

Bharat that is one of the few companies that straddles both the realms of drug discovery and new delivery systems is also slated to start phase I clinical trials in India for its molecule 'Lysostaphin' that targets staphylococcal infections.

"We are one of the very few companies out of India that have got a patent for a biotherapeutic molecule and we plan to initially do the phase I clinical trials in India, before we think about licensing agreements for further clinical research with any player abroad," Ella pointed out.

The logic behind such a move is that while clinical trial is a costly affair across phases, the revenues that a company stands to gain from a new molecule goes up tremendously, if it is licensed out for late stage clinical trials.

The Rs 100 crore that Bharat is aiming to raise will be used to bolster the marketing efforts of the company for its product range domestically as well as in the neighbouring SAARC markets.