Tatas buy 30% in Pune biotech firm

Indigene likely to be Tata Group's biotech flagship firm.

Pune-based biotechnology firm Indigene is likely to be the Tata group's flagship in the growing biotechnology space. The group has picked up a 30 per cent stake in the company for an undisclosed amount.

Tata Industries, the incubator for the group's new initiative, has a small stake in the Bangalore-based Avestha Gengraine, a biotech firm founded by Villoo Morawala Patell.

Confirming the latest development, sources at Bombay House, the headquarters of the Tata group in Mumbai, said the group would "help the company to develop good products" in the biotechnology sector, which promised to be big business in the near future.

Biotechnology analysts said the development gained significance as it meant that the Tata group would now bring substantial investment into biotech research, which had so far witnessed major investments by Reliance Life Sciences and Biocon.

Reliance Life Sciences has, in fact, lined up a Rs 900 crore investment over five years. The Aditya Birla group, too, is interested in the biotechnology business.

Tata group source said they "would chip in funds in the company for its technological work as and when it is required". They, however, declined to divulge the financial details of the acquisition.

According to sources, Indigene is close to announcing a "big discovery in research" within a month. Indigene, an integrated biotechnology and bioinformatics company, is focusing on the convergence between pharmaceuticals and clinical genomics leading to preventive personalised medicine. The company provides innovative solutions for global challenges in health problems.

Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata, in an interview, had told Business Standard last year: "In the areas of biotech applications in the pharmaceuticals industry and in the area of drug research, there is considerable opportunity for us which we are indeed looking at today."

The Tata Group had joined hands with former R&D head of Ranbaxy, Reshmi Barbhiaya, in a new drug discovery initiative in Hyderabad.

The business model of the new initiative is learnt to be combining intellectual property and product development for long-term sustainable revenue generation and value addition, with R&D services and collaborative research programmes.

The group exited the pharmaceutical business a few years ago. It sold Merind Ltd and Tata Pharma, a Merind subsidiary, to Wockhardt in the late 1990s.