The Hindu Business Line : India on Novartis’ radar for prospecting bio-resources

Going natural
Novartis has a project in China where fungi is looked at for an ingredient that has anti-cancer properties
It will also launch products of the newly acquired Swiss biotech company, Speedel, in India
Mr C. Snook will be Novartis’ new Chairman in India from August

P.T. Jyothi Datta

Advertisement

Mumbai, July 16 Swiss drug-major Novartis AG is looking at bio-diverse resources around the world towards developing medicines from natural sources, and India features on this plan.

The idea is to scan marine sources, rain-forests, fungi and micro-organisms for the natural ingredients that they make to protect themselves, said Novartis India’s outgoing Chairman, Dr Peter Jager, of the project that is a pursuit of the parent company.

With its vast bio-resources, India has a huge potential and is part of the plan, he said. He was, however, unable to give a timeline on when similar efforts would take-off in India. No pilot project has commenced in the country, he clarified.

Explaining further how it works, Dr Jager told Business Line that Novartis has a project in China where fungi is looked at for an ingredient that has anti-cancer properties. In Thailand, the company has a project with the Ministry of Science and Technology where a micro-organism that grows on an insect is looked at for its anti-infective quality, he said. Similar projects are on in Brazil too, he added.

While Novartis has been prospecting bio-resources for leads that could be developed into prospective medicines for some years now, in India too a project had been formalised earlier this year between Piramal Healthcare (or erstwhile Nicholas Piramal) and the Department of Biotechnology to screen bio-molecules from the microbial diversity collected from different ecological niches.

The drug company was to partner efforts by nine other Government institutes.

Speedel products

Dr Jager also said that Novartis would look to bring products from its recently acquired Swiss biotech company, Speedel, into India. Speedel has cardio-vascular and blood pressure products and Novartis would look to bring products from the Speedel pipeline into India at a later stage, he told shareholders earlier in the day.

Strategy

Come August, Mr C. Snook will be Novartis’ new Chairman in India. But the outgoing Chairman told Business Line that Novartis was investing only a fraction of what it would like to invest in the country, given the concerns over intellectual property rights (IPR). These concerns have been accentuated by the on-going IP-related litigation on Novartis’ cancer drug Glivec. About 9,500 patients get free Glivec in the country, he said. “If Glivec does not get a patent, then what will? We will do whatever it takes,” he added.

Novartis shares were up over three per cent, at Rs 282, on the BSE.

Related Stories:
Novartis Q1 net profit up 30%
Novartis to ramp up India development centre

More Stories on : Pharmaceuticals | Outlook

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page