The Hindu Business Line : Biovel enters growth hormone zone

Bangalore, July 5 Biotech startup Biovel Life Sciences P Ltd will soon start the first indigenous production of human growth hormone (hGH) with technology licensed from Dowpharma, a unit of US major Dow Chemicals, company officials said.

hGH, an estimated global market of $2.5-3 billion, is currently imported into the country and is mainly injected to spur growth in short teenagers. A major player in the field is Danish major Novo Nordisk.

Mr P. Sudhakera Naidu, CEO and MD of the two-year-old Biovel, said the company would soon start production based on Dowpharma’s proprietary ‘pfenex’ expression technology. Biovel has set up an Rs 45-crore production facility on 10 acres of land at Hoskote near here. It would move up from bench scale production and expected its growth hormone product to hit the domestic market in two years. Field staff were being recruited across the regions.

Dr Durgaprasad Annavajjula, Biovel’s Director-Technical, said Biovel had the exclusive Indian production licence and a non-exclusive global marketing licence from Dowpharma. It would aim at 5 per cent share in the domestic hGH market and also look at the regulated markets.

For Dowpharma, Biovel would be the first licensee company to produce and market its hGH globally. Its scientists would be involved in scale-up, pre-clinical and clinical testing, manufacture and marketing, according to Mr N.Y. Sanglikar, Mumbai-based Director - Public Affairs, Dow Chemical International P Ltd. Apart from dwarfism, the hormone is also approved for lean mass or obesity.

The facility employs 50 people and includes a pilot plant, two production lines and an R&D centre.

Biovel planned to expand it to an advanced manufacturing centre over the next 18 months with an investment of Rs 70 crore. The finance has come from promoters and bank credit.

Mr Naidu said Biovel was about to launch its first product, a blood coagulant, in the country. It would follow it up with a typhoid vaccine and the HiB (haemophylius influenza type-B) vaccine, recombinant proteins such as EGF and streptokinase.

The bigger plan was to develop innovatively delivered generic or biosimilar drugs, besides molecules in oncology, skin disorder and gynaecology.

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