Bangalore: Biocon Ltd. will launch a much awaited new drug on Sunday to treat head and neck cancers and the Bangalore-based pharma major is pinning hopes on its commercial success to boost the company's revenues that has being hit hard recently by pricing pressures on its main cholesterol-lowering statins.

BIOMAb EGFR had shown consistent results when clinical trials were conducted on patients suffering from head and neck cancers, both in India and abroad. Monoclonal antibodies or MAbs are agents used in the treatment of cancer based on the human body's natural disease-fighting mechanism.

The global market for monoclonal antibodies is currently estimated at $ 15 billion and is slated to double by 2010. The new drug will be launched by Hindi film star Shah Rukh Khan whose father had succumbed to the killer disease several years ago.

Biocon posted a moderate 0.5 per cent rise in net profit during the first quarter (April-June) of the current fiscal from a year ago. Its operating margins in the April-June quarter dipped to 26 per cent from 30 per cent a year earlier mainly due to a foreign exchange loss of Rs. 3 crore and a drop in prices of statins.

BIOMAb EGFR, Biocon's first proprietary product, has received the requisite regulatory approvals for commercial marketing in India and overseas.

The new drug will be manufactured by Biocon Biopharmaceuticals, a 51:49 joint venture formed in 2003 between Biocon and the Cuban firm CIMAB. While the first batch of the new drug will be imported from Cuba, Biocon will subsequently manufacture the cancer-fighting drug at its facility (Biocon Park) here.

According to chairperson and managing director of Biocon Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Biocon's discovery-led research programmes in oncology and diabetes are expected to develop into large global opportunities in the next two to three years.

New treatments

Exploring new treatments in oncology are critically important given the high incidence of head and neck cancers worldwide. There are half a million new cases annually with nearly 2,50,000 deaths occurring.

Further, it is estimated that globally about nine million new cancer cases are diagnosed every year of which over half are fatal. In India, there are an estimated 7,00,000 new cancer patients every year and half of them do not survive.

The South East Asian region accounts for the highest incidence of head and neck cancers and one-third of the world burden of head and neck cancers are reported in the Indian subcontinent.

"Smoking, chewing tobacco in combination with alcohol consumption are considered to be the risk factors for head and neck cancers," an official said.

The new drug will be later extended to other indications such as colorectal (cancer that develops in the colon), brain, breast, pancreatic and lung cancers.

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