"Become entrepreneurs, don't fear failure"
Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw's advice to thousands of students pursuing their biotech courses in the country.
In a free-wheeling interview with Janani Ravindar, Raashi Sreenivasan, Ramesh Krishnan K and Vishal R Patel, all third year Industrial Biotechnology students at Anna University, Chennai, for their magazine, Verve, the Biocon chief outlined the shape of things to come in Indian biotechnology. Excerpts:
The media gives a green picture of biotechnology. But what is the ground reality with respect to generating employment and where do you think the thrust of the biotech boom lies?
The way I look at biotech and life sciences, I feel India is well positioned in terms of global leadership in this sector. This is a huge segment encompassing agricultural biotech, industrial biotech and pharmaceutical biotech. The kind of opportunities and the growth projections in this sector are huge and, therefore, the dependence and the need for a large number of people to get into this sector are also large. It is a big picture. It is all the more relevant today as companies are expanding and assuming a global scale. Biocon Group itself has several companies like Biocon, Syngene and Clinigene. Syngene is a contract research company that is expanding hugely in terms of scientific manpower. Clinigene is a clinical research organization which is also expanding in a big way. Contract research companies are growing by leaps and bounds. The reason being, the global pharmaceutical patterns are changing and the pharmaceutical companies clearly realize and recognize the act that they have to increase their bandwidth and bring the cost down. The only way they can do it is by outsourcing services to companies in countries like India. ....More

If I can do it, so you can!

Dr. Suresh K.Rayala

This is aimed to provide inspiration and guidance to those students who choose to take Biology as their major at Graduate level.

Currently, I am working as Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA and has made very important contributions in the field of cancer as evidenced by several peer reviewed publications in International journals. My research focuses on understanding the molecules as well as the molecular mechanisms underlying tamoxifen resistance, study the bridging and interplay between growth factor receptor and estrogen receptor pathway in the development of tamoxifen resistance, non-genomic actions of estrogen receptor. I came to USA during June 2003 and with in these four years, I have made excellent progress in my career which definitely has added to the advancement of cancer field. .....More

Biotech for a billion people ...
The biotechnology industry is slowly but surely coming into its own.
Biotechnology is no longer just a "buzz-word"; its impact has started touching the lives of ordinary people of our country. Medicines and vaccines for human and animal health, produced through recombinant DNA technology, are now increasingly available here. Almost two-thirds of all the cotton grown here is Bt-cotton, the transgenic variety that has the ability to resist damage from the most serious group of cotton-pests, the boll worms. There are a large number of institutions, both in the public and the private sector, involved in research and development in this sunrise sector. The nascent biotechnology industry is slowly but surely coming into its own; the annual turnover from this sector in 2006-07 touched over Rs 8,300 crore, clocking an annual growth rate of close to 32 percent.
As our nation comes out of its throes of poverty and underdevelopment, fuelled by a double digit growth of its economy, affordability, equity or inclusiveness, and sustainability have to be the watch words. A biotechnology-led growth (which I must emphasize is not to undermine the importance of any of the other sectors) easily satisfies these conditions. The developments in the area of vaccine production in this country in the last decade have made recombinant vaccines within easy reach of the common man. The prices of say, the Hepatitis B vaccine, have fallen by over 10 times with the emergence of local competition in its manufacture. Biotechnology now offers options to develop vaccines for diseases that are scourges, particularly for the tropical and developing countries. This would be an important approach for countries like ours, seeking cost-effective solutions in health care through prevention rather than cure......More

Wanted a National Biotechnology Policy
The cover story of BioSpectrum's inaugural issue in March 2003 pointed out that the country urgently needed a National Biotech Policy to promote the biotech sector. In this extract, we recall the voices of the industry in 2003.
In 2003, BioSpectrum pointed out that the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), set up in 1986 by the Rajiv Gandhi government, was working quietly to beef up the country's infrastructure in biotechnology. Instead of building its own parallel empire, DBT had chosen to fund a range of activities and research programs in research institutions and worked zealously to build on the strengths of the organizations in biotechnology. In spite of many such initiatives, DBT was yet another scientific department, part of the omnibus Ministry of Science and Technology. Much the same way the Department of Electronics (DoE) was till 1990s. But economic liberalization and the emergence of software industry changed the face of DoE. With a National Information Technology Policy in place and a Prime Minister's National Task Force on IT, the contours of the IT industry had changed dramatically. Aided by a relentless campaign by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), almost every hurdle in the path of IT was removed by 2003. IT and software became the "mantra" every minister and policy maker swore by, starting from the Prime Minister. Every state evolved its own IT policy and wooed global investors. IT had joined the "holy cows" of the government in the same way space, atomic energy, defense and national security policies had become. There was a national consensus on those sectors and they were the nation's pride.
BioSpectrum said that a similar treatment was what the biotechnology sector expected from the nation as early as in 2003. Biotechnology itself was now becoming main stream. It was no longer just some esoteric research work done by dedicated scientists in sophisticated laboratories. Across the world, biotechnology was recognized as the harbinger of a new world in areas such as health care, agriculture, industrial processes and genetics and cloning are on every one's lips. .....More

Walk the Talk on Policy
On the occasion of BioSpectrum Awards Nite on December 21, 2007, BioSpectrum organized a panel discussion to gauge the mood of the industry and understand the implications of the National Biotechnology Development Strategy.
Prof. Samir K Brahmachari, the new chief of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR); Dr Cyrus Poonawalla, chairman, Serum Institute, Pune; Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon; Dr KK Narayanan, managing director, Metahelix Life Sciences Private Ltd and president, Association of Biotech-Led Enterprises (ABLE); and Dr S Natesh, senior advisor, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India participated in the discussion moderated by N Suresh, Group Editor of BioSpectrum (India and Asia). Biotechnology has been seen as an extension of the knowledge sector after the success of IT and telecom. "That's how biotech came into prominence as an emerging industry. The government opened the IT sector with a policy in 1986, which actually led to the emergence of the software services industry. Further the National IT Task Force recommendations in 1999 paved the way for the opening up of the telecom sector and the creation of the BPO industry. Similarly, the National Telecom Policy 1994 has created the booking mobile telephone industry, which has become the world's second largest in size in just a decade. The biotech sector today is at a similar juncture. So we would like to know what are the similar things that can happen to the biotech industry with the new policy?" said N Suresh, inviting the panelists to share their observations, concerns, and key challenges. Suresh also asked the panelists whether they foresee the emergence of a totally new industry segment within biotech, which is not there now but in 5-10 years due to the impact of the Biotech Policy. Excerpts from the panel discussion on the Biotech Policy......More

Scientific community must not yield to Luddites this time
Nano biotechnology and synthetic biology can solve many of the intransigent problems of our society. Science and technology development should not be stopped because of political demagogues

"DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And, we dance to its music."
-Richard Dawkins

It seems it is always the anti-technology activists who are first to cast their stone at any new technology, and scientists come later. Ottawa-based ETC has fired the first salvo demanding stringent regulatory restrictions on the development of nanobiotechnology and synthetic biology. Undoing PR damage is always a hopeless effort afterwards as we have learnt from the GM crops example. As the anti-GMO campaign rages on in India and around the world, the same Luddites are starting to open a new battlefront to stop newer technologies like nanobiotechnolgy and synthetic biology. In fact, it is not in their best interest to learn facts and truth about science and biotechnology. They are just waiting for their masters in Europe to give them a call. It would not be too long before they start their "Free India of Synthetic Biology and Nanobiotechnology" campaign. Right now, they are too busily entrenched in the anti-GMO warfare. They just want to keep the pot stirred by making loudest noise possible so that authorities start clamping down on them, and choke them to death. ...More

25years of recombinant DNA vaccine for livestock
The dependence on livestock is more in developing countries and is particularly important to poor people. Developing countries value livestock products (milk, meat, eggs) that provide income to farmers. Until sometime in the past, the animal vaccine range that was available was not significant and it also did not address several animal diseases of concern. The animal biologicals market still largely lives on conventional vaccines based on primary cell culture or mammalian cell cultures. This contrasts with the development in the west, where we now have recombinant vaccines, (eg. against ticks) DNA vaccine (eg. against West Nile fever) and live vector vaccines (eg. pox vector). It was in 1982 that the first recombinant DNA vaccine for livestock was developed. ...More 

Tips to become a successful entrepreneur
Indian entrepreneur? These two words no more ring a surprise. While entrepreneurs are blooming across small and big towns in India the people who support them convert their dreams into reality are inceasing as well.
The Indian Angel Network is one such organisation that invests in early stage businesses of entrepreneurs who can create immense value. The members of this network have prior entrepreneurial and/or operational experience that they bring to help nurture and grow early stage businesses.
Ranjit Shastri is one such influential member of the Indian Angel Network. He co-founded PSi, Inc, an investment advisory firm incorporated in New York with an associated company in India. PSi has assisted a wide range of international investors in India, including both strategic investors and private equity firms, in identifying opportunities in India.
In the first of a series where members of the Indian Angel Network offer their tips to entrepreneurs in India, Ranjit Shastri discusses his experience and what he has learnt from it. A Get Ahead Special. ....More

Now showing
Recent times have witnessed the rise of high end cosmetics, boasting of clinical trials and guaranteed results. Simultaneously, some pharma companies are promoting their personal care products in a way to ensure proactive, prevention based purchase, than the usual problem-solution route. Welcome to the world of cosmeceuticals. Nandini Patwardhan discovers
What is it about soap bars? Dettol on one hand, Dove on the other and Niko yet on the other hand. For starters, they are soaps, main task being cleaning the skin. Going beyond this superficial similarity, one might observe that all of these belong to different segments of the same product-soap bars. While Dove is a beauty soap (cosmetic) and Niko a medicated bar, Dettol comes under the upcoming category of cosmeceuticals. "In soap as a category, Niko is a dermatological soap, dove soap will be cosmetic; but suppose you take Dettol or lifebuoy—these are cosmeceuticals," explain Dr Raja B Smarta, Managing Founder of the Mumbai-based consulting firm, Interlink.
This is the land of cosmeceuticals for you. Experts opine that cosmeceuticals are topical cosmetic-pharmaceutical hybrids, which are intended to enhance the users beauty through ingredients that provide additional health-related function or benefit. This means that though they are applied topically as cosmetics, they contain certain ingredients that influence the skin's biological functions.....More

The making of successful salesmen
V Srinivasan
The job of a medical representative is an interesting one. They are out in the field (not confined to a small cubicle in a small office), interacting with highly qualified customers. They are the breadwinners - earning members - for the organization. Collectively, if they all do well, they can take the organization to great heights! They should therefore be passionate, and proud of their job. They are away from the head office, and their immediate supervisors, for most of the time. Their immediate supervisors may visit them once a while. Rest of the time, they are on their own. Therefore, they have to be very responsible, and self-controlled in their job.
Their customers are highly qualified people. Therefore, they have to be thorough in their detailing, sampling, other promotional inputs, etc. exactly as given by marketing department for each and every product. Their customers list must be up-to-date. It should be exactly as per marketing strategy, because many of them may be just following the same old customers list, left by the previous employee to previous employee, etc. If they are not sure, they must take the help and guidance of their superiors, but they must ensure that their customers list is up-to-date at all times. This will ensure that all their efforts and promotion of products reach the right customers, which will help them to get the desired results. ....More

Drink to success
Dabur India, recently launched Chywan Junior, and marked its entry into the malted food, drinks segment. Garima Arora charts the marketing initiatives behind the product
Most marketing managers approach the area of brand extensions with utmost caution and prudence. However, Dabur, has been one of the few brands that has not shied away from trying this some what risky marketing tool with extraordinary results. Latest from the Dabur stable is Chyawan Junior, an extension of the famous Ayurvedic brand Chyawanprash. The product is pitched against established brands like Bournvita, Horlicks and Complan and is priced at par.....More

Viagra - a promising drug for various treatments
Subal C Basak
Since time immemorial, male impotence was an issue that has been subject of countless debates and has undermined the complexity of the man-woman relationship. Erectile dysfunction (ED) represents a significant part of male impotence. It is estimated that 10 per cent men suffer from erectile dysfunction, and this figure is as much as over 50 per cent for men between 40 and 70 years old.
Viagra, chemically known as sildenafil citrate, was approved by the US FDA on March 27, 1998, as a therapy for erectile dysfunction. The introduction of this drug for the first time offered hope for men, who are suffering from erectile dysfunction. The drug became a blockbuster overnight. The drug's ability to arouse a man was hyped up by the print and electronic media worldwide. ....More

Biotech patents in Europe
This article by Dr Ralph D Kirsch and Dr Thomas Westphal explores various options for Indian life sciences companies for filing and obtaining patents in Europe.
Before starting to think about getting a patent in Europe, we have to mention that there are certain national requirements in India, such as the compulsory filing of a national patent application in India first and the "foreign filing license", on which you should consult Indian patent attorneys. A biotech company can get patent protection for their inventions in Europe by three routes.
The PCT route as the way of choice
Filing national patent applications separately in selected European states is obviously complicated and expensive. One easier option is to file a European patent application at the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich. However, the way of choice for Indian biotech companies is an international patent application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) to which India is a party since December 7, 1998. The PCT route is subdivided in two phases, a first "international phase" and a second "regional phase". Initially, the PCT application is filed at a Receiving Office (RO), which can be, e.g. the head office of the Indian Patent Office in Calcutta or the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva. This starts the international phase, which is relatively cheap and usually takes 30 or 31 months time, during which the applicant can decide on what to do with his patent application (e.g. find a licensee or continue by himself). After those 30 or 31 months, respectively, the applicant can chose in which regions/countries he wants to continue with his application, e.g. he can choose to start the regional phase in Japan, India, the US and/or Europe and enter the European regional phase via the EPO.....More

Call for a change
Ayurveda is one of the world's oldest medical sciences. However, even after five thousand years, it is still struggling to cross borders. Sachin Jagdale finds out why
The benefit of natural products cannot be disputed but the international community seems to continue favouring modern medicines. This is in spite of ayurveda taking on a more modern avatar in terms of presentation. Though every form of medicine has its merits and demerits, the scientifically and clinically more reliable allopathic medicine category clearly outweighs alternative forms of medicines like ayurvedic and unani.....More

Hundred not out!
Where there is a will, there is a way and this rings true for Alembic Pharmaceuticals. Alembic's 'try me' instead of 'why me?' attitude towards challenges has indeed made it survive the odds of the past century. Sachin Jagdale checks the score
Alembic Pharmaceuticals has seen it all—the pre-independence era of quotas and regulations, the restrictions during world wars, and its own gradual shift from chemicals to pharmaceuticals. After a hundred years, as the company celebrates its centenary year, it is time to savour a hard-won success. Alembic's voyage is even more significant as it has gone through those testing times, which many other Indian pharma majors have not and has survived to tell the story.....More

Researching the Past
Book lovers held up in airports, by the customary delays in flights, face the hazard of being seduced by the attractive displays of new arrivals in airport bookshops. On a recent excursion I was compelled to browse, ending up inevitably with a book, that I would almost never finish reading in a reasonable length
of time. I am now the proud possessor of a hardbound copy of William Dalrymple’s The Last Moghul. So far I have read reviews of the book, some criticism by the more scholarly and traditional historians and noted with satisfaction that a recent yearend feature placed it on a list of books that the Prime Minister
found worthy of mention. I was also drawn to the book because one of its major themes was a description of Delhi in 1857. Some years ago I had been castigated by a perceptive and critical reader of Current Science for alluding, incorrectly, to the events of 1857 as the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’, a phrase picked up from books by British historians. The critic pointed out that a more acceptable description would be a ‘War of Independence’. Dalrymple’s book seemed to present a new view of those momentous days. I must confess that I have not gone past the Introduction, although I have read a few pages at random. Finding time to read has become difficult. But, there is enough in the first few pages of Dalrymple’s book to provide a basis for reflection. Can yet another book be written on the events of 1857? The answer is undoubtedly, yes, especially if new documentary material is uncovered. This is precisely what Dalrymple has done, discovering hitherto unread material in repositories from Lahore to Rangoon and, of course, most importantly in the National Archives in Delhi. ....More

Discover your leadership style
The Enneagram, which dates from at least 2,000 years ago and has its roots in Asia and the Middle East, derives its name from the Greek words ennea (“nine”) and gram (“something written or drawn)”.
The term refers to the nine points, or numbers, of the Enneagram system seen in the Enneagram symbol. (This ancient system offers profound insights into the different ways in which people think, feel, and behave, since the nine different Enneagram styles represent distinct worldviews, with related patterns of thinking, feeling, and taking action. Even more important, each Enneagram style is connected to a specific high-impact development path. Thus, the accurate identification of your Enneagram style is important if you want to grow and develop as a leader and as person.....More

Biotech's New Wave of Entrepreneurs A YEAR LATER
BioSpectrum, in August-September 2006, featured biotech's next wave of entrepreneurs. They were entrepreneurs who left cushy jobs to create a new path. When we featured them last year, they were confident, bullish, and thinking differently to establish themselves. A year later when we review them, it is heartening to note that almost all of them have made significant breakthroughs. RFCL is now poised to leap into a new growth phase, through inorganic growth by acquiring Wipro BioMed. Advinus has struck multi-million dollar drug-discovery deals. Biovel Life Sciences and PREMAS Biotech have launched their commercial operations. Navya Biologicals and Polyclone have got DSIR recognition. These are a few examples to illustrate the flavor. In the ensuing pages, BioSpectrum highlights the progress made by the entrepreneurs listed in 2006.....More

Bio-business in brief: the case of conotoxins
Ritu Mehdiratta and Gayatri Saberwal
A recent report in Science1 states that rotaviruses (the cause of many a diarrhoea) lead to 20–60 deaths a year in the United States and about 600,000 in the developing world. This is one of the many disturbing health statistics that differentiates the developed from the developing world. If we are to see the gap narrow significantly within our lifetime, Indian researchers and entrepreneurs need to engage more with drug development. Indigenous drugs are significantly cheaper than those made elsewhere and increase our ‘health security’. Their production also helps build the nation’s capabilities and economic competitiveness. In an effort to contribute to this process, this article focuses on conotoxins as drug candidates.....More

What is next in biotechnology?
Dr Edison T Liu
Throughout the world, biotechnology is synonymous with the likes of Amgen, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and Genentech, companies centered on the development of therapeutics; and companies such as Caliper Life Sciences, Affymetrix, Celera (the original company) and Illumina who provide technology platforms for research and pharmaceutical development. In Asia, as governments and investors push to develop local and regional biotechnology industries, the focus has been on establishing entities based on these existing models. On the whole, the majority of Asian biotechnology companies emerging in the first wave of investment from Taiwan to New Delhi have followed this format. This is all well and good, and both money and societal benefit can still be extracted from this model, but a new business opportunity is arising that is being overlooked by investors. It is one that will inevitably rise in clinical importance and in terms of profit margins. This emerging sector will be in medical informatics, a discipline defined as information technology dedicated to the collection, storage, indexing, processing, retrieval, and analysis of medical information. The prediction is that this underserved sector will see an expansive growth in the next two decades as the need and demand for efficiency, portability, and safety in medical care rises in both the developed and emerging economies.....More

Academia and industry should work more closely
The BioSpectrum CEOs Summit 2007 in Bangalore discussed ways to bridge the existing gap between the industry and academia.
The third BioSpectrum CEOs Summit kicked off with its Bangalore leg on August 17, 2007 at The Grand Ashok, Bangalore. Addressing a gathering of industry leaders and representatives from the academia, Narayanan Suresh, Editor, BioSpectrum, who moderated a discussion on bridging the industry-academia gap, said there are about 300 institutions in the country offering biotechnology courses and these institutions have been churning out as many as 30,000 students every year for the last few years, but as per the BioSpectrum-ABLE survey, the industry today employs about 20,000-25,000 personnel in the technical and scientific categories. "This set us thinking as to what could be the reason for this kind of mismatch and this is something which we wanted to explore. Hence we thought apart from the industry people, the other stakeholders (academia) of the industry should be equally present here at this forum and we should give them an opportunity to interact with the industry captains who keep complaining about talent crunch in the industry. This platform should help come up with solutions which will ensure smooth flow of talent from the academia to the industry," Narayanan Suresh stated.....More

The rise and rise of HPMC capsules
Subal C Basak
Hard (two-piece) capsules were developed as an edible container of medicine(s), mainly for oral use. These two-piece capsules have been used for over a century for pharmaceutical purposes. J. C. Lehuby, a Frenchman, is credited with the invention of the two-piece capsule. He was granted a French patent in 1846 for a method of making 'medical coverings'. However, J. Murdoch of London, in 1848, was the first to create two-piece capsule, which was made from the sole use of animal-based gelatin. The design of this original hard shell capsule has remained unchanged over the decades except for changes in shape to create self-locking tamper-resistant capsules and in sealing process to allow pastes and liquids to be filled into capsules. In addition to having the advantages of elegance, ease of use, capsules (especially hard shells) enjoy wide-spread popularity, because of their relative ease of manufacturing and their ability to efficiently mask the taste and odour of the medicines. As a result of the advances made in drug delivery technology during the last 20 to 30 years, the importance of capsules as delivery device has increased enormously....More

Future of pharmacy education in India
Dr G Vidya Sagar
It can be said that the pharmacy education in India is the result of efforts of Prof. M L Schroff. He was instrumental in starting a regular B.Pharm course of three years in 1937. Today, pharmacy education has experienced a phenomenal growth with 450-degree colleges training more than 25,000 students at B.Pharm level. But the question is 'Is this development in a right perspective?'
Many experts feel that it is necessary to lay down a clear policy to better the quality of pharmacy education in the country. For this, promotion of postgraduate education and research in higher pharmacy institutions and maintenance of standards like accreditation and quality assurance are a must. Apart, it is felt that it is necessary to plan for a substantial increase in the pharmaceutical teaching community, particularly in the new emerging areas of the study, to turn India into an international acclaimed pharmaceutical centre.....More

Honing The Host's  Death Mechanisms To Cure Cancer

Dr. Anil Shanker

For a number of years there has been great enthusiasm for the idea of triggering the immune system to eradicate tumors. However, in contrast to bacteria or viruses, tumor cells closely resemble the normal tissue from which they were originally derived. Therefore, in order for an immune response to tumor cells to occur, normal self-tolerance must be overcome and tumor antigens must be identified.

 .....More

HIV-1 Integrase: A Promising Therapeutic Target Against AIDS      

In the absence of an effective vaccine, a combination of inhibitors of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) reverse transcriptase and protease provides strong support for continued development of potent and selective therapeutic agents to control HIV infection. There are three classes of antiretrovirals: inhibitors of the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease (PR) enzymes and inhibitors of HIV entry, including receptor and coreceptor binding and cell fusion. Recently, inhibitors of HIV-1 Integrase (IN) are also making considerable progress as potential drugs against HIV. ......More