The Hindu Business Line : Scientist seeks Indian platform for his novel drugs

Dream project
The tentative proposal is that the Indian partner will invest all or much of the initial Rs 30 crore for the initial years to see the company through the drug discovery.
It would be open to new equity partners once it reached the clinical trials stage.

Bangalore , Dec. 17

Dr Ananda Chakrabarty, the first person to win a patent on a living organism way back in 1981, wants to start a pharmaceutical joint venture in India along with a leading Indian company as the majority equity partner.

He has had talks with potential partners in his biotech venture during his current five-city lecture circuit. "The response I got from some very important companies is very positive. They are large, well-known names that I cannot reveal yet," Dr Chakrabarty told Business Line on the sidelines of a lecture in Bangalore.

Dr Chakrabarty's plan is to bring out revolutionary drugs based on his path-breaking research on microbial pathogens over the last five years. These would target various types of cancer starting with cervical, lung, prostate ; tackle HIV, malaria and look at others later. "It would be a completely new innovative product line for the global market," according to him.

The tentative proposal is that the Indian partner will invest all or much of the initial Rs 30 crore for the initial years to see the company through the drug discovery. It would be open to new equity partners once it reached the clinical trials stage.

The Indian entity will be a subsidiary of Amrita Therapeutics, Inc, incorporated in the US and the process could be sealed in the next 60-90 days, according to the Amrita CEO, Ms Susan Kling Finston, chief of Finston Consulting, LLC and former senior Intellectual Property executive, PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America). Dr Chakrabarty would be its scientific chief.

Going by the partnership it would have and the global market opportunity for the products, the new entity would have a major presence in India and could grow to be a $10-20-billion company in ten years. But for now, "We are in very preliminary discussions with some significant companies who may be wanting to get into this area," Dr Chakrabarty said.

Renowned for the oil guzzling bacteria that he engineered and patented for use on oil spills, Dr Chakrabarty has co-founded a similar joint venture, CDG Therapeutics, in Chicago with another Indian born scientist. His work there has come out with what he calls a promiscuous or one-shot drug candidate for multiple diseases from cancer to malaria. He is currently distinguished professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine.

For all its size and research potential, India, he said, has not produced an original drug so far. Should his dream Indian venture take off, "We will generate intellectual property first, file patent applications and market (the drugs coming out of the joint outfit) worldwide," he said.

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