| "We had an existing business partnership with MediBic and this investment takes the relationship further. With this we hope to tap more into the potential of the Japanese market and there is nothing that prevents us from leveraging on the relationship to take us to other parts of the globe as well," said Vijay Chandru, Chairman and CEO Strand Genomics. |
| According to a MediBic spokesperson, Strand's products and expertise will form one component of a virtual pharma pipeline that MediBix is in the process of building. |
| This strategic investment comes two years after the closure of Series A investment in the company by WestBridge Capital Partners and UTI Ventures, both of whom are on the board. |
| Strand, which was formed out of IISc, Bangalore, raised $4.6 million during the initial investment, followed by $2.5 million acquired from research grants and soft loans. |
| "While Strand products have traditionally concentrated on the discovery part of the drug development pipeline, over the last two years we have begun to focus on the development side. This means, that we are increasingly looking into the chemical structure of molecules and prediction of drug capabilities. Going forward, our involvement on the chemistry side will substantially increase and our products will reflect that focus," said Kas Subramanian, chief scientific officer for Strand. |
| The company is working on custom focused chemical libraries, which is an estimated $100 million market globally. It also hopes to launch its first hepatotoxicity prediction platform in the next two years' time. The company is also keeping its eye on the molecular diagnostics market, which is estimated to touch $15 billion in three years. |
| Strand, which had announced the launch of truPK, an in-silico predictive modelling product in August this year, has tied up with Bio-Rad for its distribution globally. |
| "TruPK will be integrated into BioRad's software product for pharma companies called KnowItAll. The distribution will go into effect in October when we launch the advanced version of truPK," said Subramanian. |
| The launch in March of truPK, along with its determining and visualisation product, Avadis, the company expects its revenues to grow by four fold and turn itself cash positive this fiscal. Chandru though refused to give out the actual revenue figures of the company. |
| Replying to a question on the Indian pharma market, Subramaian said, "I don't think there is even a single pharma company in India which gains any revenue from any novel molecules. All of them are into generic drugs. So at present there is no market to talk about." |
| But the company did agree that with the WTO coming into effect in 2005, R&D activities in the country will increase, thus making it more of a market place for their products. |
| Strand milestones |
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