The Hindu : Business : TCS pact with Italian firm

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 05, 2005

Business

Business

TCS pact with Italian firm

Special Correspondent

Drug discovery through computer programme

HYDERABAD: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has entered into an agreement with Congenia, a biotechnology start-up promoted by Italy's Genextra SpA group to provide advanced fragment-based lead optimisation solutions for drug discovery.

As part of the agreement, first of its kind for an IT company, TCS' life sciences research and development division will work on P66 — a target protein identified by Congenia as a key protein involved in several age-related diseases and develop optimised drug leads. The contract, involving a little over a million Euro, has duration of 18 months.

Announcing this at a press conference here on Thursday, TCS Executive Vice-President and head of advanced technology centre M. Vidyasagar said the company would use modules of its own product "Bio-Suite'' to work on the target protein and screen thousands of potential lead molecules for predicting which of them might bind themselves with the target protein. The optimised lead molecules produced by it would be further developed by Congenia through animal trials and eventually human clinical trials.

As part of wet chemistry and crystallography, work would be carried out by TCS' sub-contractor, Altiora Ventures, located in Israel, while the biological assays would be carried out by Congenia in Milan, Italy. While most players were continuing the traditional methods, TCS would adopt a computer-simulated environment for drug discovery. The firm was not just making a foray into the sector, but was "very serious" about drug discovery using its IT strength.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business