The company defers listing of research arms Syngene and Clinigene to next fiscal.
Bangalore-headquartered biotechnology firm Bio-con Ltd is planning to go for more clinical trials of its novel drug oral insulin before launching it in India as the company eyes to build value in this space.
“Earlier, we thought of launching oral insulin in India after receiving the study reports of phase-III trials. However, we are now looking at conducting more trials of oral insulin to build it up as a global product and then unlock the value if required,” Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon said. Oral insulin will take some more time to be launched in India, she added.
Last week, Biocon had signed a $200 million marketing pact with Pfizer, which will see Pfizer commercialising Biocon’s four insulin products across the globe. Biocon is also expected to get an additional $150 million as part of this pact based on certain product milestones along with proceeds from marketing revenue.
However, the company said that it would stick to the earlier deadline of mid-2011 for launching its oral insulin in the market.
Further, the company has also deferred plans to list its two research arms, Syngene and Clinigene. “Earlier, we did have plans to list our research arms during this fiscal. However, we have deferred it to next fiscal as the company wants to build up capacity in value terms in these units,” Ms Shaw said.
While the company plans to build up integrated drug development capacity in Syngene, it wants to conduct early phase trials in its Clinigene units, she added. Contract research units in India is facing high cost pressures from countries like Vietnam, China, Taiwan among others.
“Without building up value in the research units with capability in niche areas, market will not give value to our research arms,” Ms Shaw said. She, however, declined to give any investment figure for building of capacity in its two research units.
Biocon Ltd has posted a 20 per cent jump in its net profit to Rs 89 crore in the second quarter ending September of FY11 as compared to Rs 74 crore reported last year on the back of higher growth in the biopharmaceutical business.
Total income of the company rose 16 per cent during this period to Rs 688 crore in the second quarter.
