Indian biotechnology firms set to grow: Study

Oslo, Apr 10: Indian biotechnology firms are set to win a bigger share of the world market for drugs and vaccines, perhaps mimicking the success of Indian information technology firms, a study said.

''India is innovating its way out of poverty and ill health,'' said Peter Singer of the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health in Toronto, Canada, of the report about 21 Indian biotechnology companies.

It said that Indian firms, with low wage costs, were well placed to make generic drugs when those produced by big Western firms lose patent protection. But they were increasingly trying to develop new drugs that could compete worldwide.

The study, in the journal Nature Biotechnology, said that India had to take steps to ensure a continued focus on treating illnesses at home -- ranging from tuberculosis to malaria -- even while it sought to expand biotech industry exports.

''At the moment we think of biotech in India as the baby elephant where information technology is the adult elephant,'' Singer told sources. India's IT firms have won market share in everything from data analysis to call centres.

''But that baby elephant is going to grow,'' he said.

''Any biotech or biopharma player in the industrialised world that doesn't pay careful attention to the innovation that's happening in India ... is not taking a very strategic and global look at their business,'' he said.

He said Indian companies could be both competitors and potential partners.

Still, the study said that the companies had ''yet to produce a truly innovative health product with a stamp 'Made in India'''.

''It isn't a question of 'if' but 'when' product breakthroughs will start arriving from India,'' said Sara Frew, a co-author of the study.

Among successes, the paper said that the 1997 launch of the hepatitis B vaccine Shanvac-B by Shantha Biotechnics had caused a tumble in prices to about 0.50 per dollar dose from 15 dollar for a comparable imported product.

Shantha's vaccine now makes up almost 40 per cent of hepatitis B vaccines for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), distributed throughout the developing world.

The Serum Institute of India has become the nation's largest vaccine supplier and exporter, with products sold in 138 countries. The company says that it is the world's largest measles vaccine maker.

It said that foreign competitors have sometimes tried to undercut Indian makers' prices with products such as an insulin produced by Biocon, only to find that Indian companies can price their items even lower.

About 20 to 30 North American biotech firms and about 25 Indian, Chinese, Brazilian and African biotech firms will meet at a conference in Toronto from May 2-4.

Reuters