Syngene, Novartis tie up for new drug research

Syngene International, a subsidiary of Biocon, has entered into a contract research agreement with the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research Inc. to carry out research projects to support new drug discovery and development.

For the year-ended March 31, 2004, Syngene registered total revenue of Rs 31.9 crore when compared to Rs 22.5 crore in the previous year.

The company, whose customers include some of the biggest pharmaceutical MNCs like AstraZeneca, Bristol Mayer, Pfizer and GSK, is also highly profitable, contributing more to the group's bottomline than its revenue share would indicate.

The net profit of the division increased by nearly 50 per cent to touch Rs 16 crore for the year-ended March 31, 2004.

The contract research agreement was signed recently after a senior contingent from Cambridge, MA, the global headquarters of Novartis Institutes, visited Syngene in Bangalore last month.

According to Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and managing director of Biocon Ltd, "We are delighted and proud to work with Novartis. This alliance is yet another step in our evolution as a valuable partner to the global pharmaceutical industry and will further enhance Syngene's ability to conduct world-class research."

"This important research agreement with Novartis will provide us a unique opportunity to interact with one of the world's leading team of scientists," Goutam Das, chief operating officer, Syngene, said.

Commenting on the execution of the agreement, Jeremy Levin, global head, strategic alliances of the Novartis Institutes, said, "We have an aggressive programme to seek the best collaborations worldwide. Our desire is to develop strong alliances with world-class scientific programmes in India, and the relationship with Syngene, and its parent Biocon, offers such an opportunity."

Since it's founding in 1994 as a subsidiary of Biocon, Syngene has emerged as one of the country's pre-eminent custom research organisations with multi-disciplinary skills in synthetic chemistry and molecular biology. Currently, it employs over 300 scientists and offers a cost-competitive edge in early stage drug discovery and development to its global clients.

The core Indian contract research industry (excluding clinical trials players) is still quite small, around $50-60 million, but is growing rapidly at 40-50 per cent a year. The growth prospects are bright as India now accounts for only 0.7 per cent of the $4 billion global market for early phase drug discovery and chemical synthesis.

Ranjit Shahani, country president, Novartis Group in India added, "India has a huge diaspora of talented scientists and chemists and these arrangements are pushing the globalisation frontier in R&D in pharmaceuticals to a new level. Partnerships such as this devolve and optimise lead times and costs to the final advantage for the patient. A robust patent regime post 2005 will only encourage more such collaborations in the future."