Indian pharma sector on path to prepare for global collaboration

Mumbai: With the impending compliance to the intellectual property regime by 2005, the Indian pharmaceutical industry is on the path of consolidation to prepare for an era of global collaboration.

As a first of sorts, three Indian companies, Shasun, Suven and Innovasynth, have announced the formation of a research, development and manufacturing alliance to service the needs of global life science companies in collaboration with Austin Chemical Company of the US.

The alliance will focus on offering drug-development services from discovery through distribution. The members will work towards leveraging on individual core competence and share resources to provide the life science industry a comprehensive platform of services.

The alliance members: Austin Chemical Company Shasun Chemicals and Drugs Suven Pharmaceuticals Innovasynth Technologies (India)

The members of the alliances are in the process of developing systems that will help integrate personnel, capacities and capabilities to offer a wide range of products and services. This will include, FTEs in the discovery and early-stage development, discovery support services, development of new NCEs for clinical studies, conducting pre-clinical and clinical trials in India, offering late-stage product development and manufacturing to include formulation development, ultimately offering commercial product manufacture, supply and distribution. All the above services will be supported by global regulatory compliance.

The alliance, as it develops, will help rationalise capital investment, share resources among members without breach of intellectual property and retain individual identity. The members of the alliance will work together to develop uniform quality systems, and technical and project management teams to facilitate comprehensive services.

Austin Chemical chief scientific officer Dr Don Butler, a renowned scientist with over four decades of discovery and development experience, along with other industry experts will work with chemists in the alliance to develop innovative chemistry and processes.

The alliance will focus on promoting these services to global life science companies to help them better transition their drug development outsourcing within India. The alliance will also focus on technology-based small pharma and biopharma companies in Europe and the US to help them accelerate their drug development via cost-effective services.

The alliance is seen as the first step towards integrating services that will help bring speed, quality and value as well as recognition to networking capabilities of Indian pharmaceutical companies as they prepare for an era of intellectual property compliance post-2005.