Nicholas to pick up 17% in Biosyntech Canada

Nichaloas Piramal India would acquire 17.1 per cent equity in the Canadian biotechnology research company"" BioSyntech Inc for Rs 21.13 crore. The Canadian research firm is engaged in biotechnology research in the orthopedic segment.

With the deal, the Nicholas Piramal would subscribe to 7, 50,000 common shares of the company. The deal agreement, which was signed by Nicholas this week, awaits the regulatory approval.

The acquisition would help enhancing the company's intellectual property portfolio, which was envisaged through its basic and process research projects in India and will also facilitate faster registration and regulatory processes in the overseas market.

Early this year, Nicholas has set up its new R&D facility in Mumbai with an investment of Rs 100 crore. The research centre, which is one of the largest single site drug R&D facility in the country, has a capacity to house 400 scientists and labs and pilot plant to carry out new drug discovery, novel drug delivery technology, formulation activities and active pharma ingredients (API) process development.

The R&D division of Nicholas now employs 275 people. The major focus of the R&D team is in the long term exploratory and basic research programmes in chemistry and biotechnology dedicated to new product development.

The company's R&D has promising leads in cancer, diabetes and inflammation. Its lead oncology molecule""P276-00 has recently moved to Phase-1 clinical trials and another back up compound P664-02 is currently in the pre-clinical stage.

Addressing the 58th annual general meeting, chairman Ajay Piramal said the company was going to discontinue its entire product outsourcing arrangement with contract manufacturing units once the new manufacturing facility at Hyderabad was commissioned.

The unit is likely to go on stream by early next year. The company is also planning to shift the manufacturing of hospital products products of Rohdia-UK, the business that was acquired by Nicholas two year s ago to the new Indian facility.