The Hindu : Business : Retain creative approach, Tata tells Advinus team

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Friday, Nov 30, 2007
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Retain creative approach, Tata tells Advinus team

Special Correspondent

Company’s drug development centre opened in Bangalore

— PHOTO: G. R. N. SOMASHEKAR

DRUG DISCOVERY: Ratan Tata (centre), Chairman, Tata Sons, with Rashmi Barbhaiya (left), Managing Director and CEO, Advinus, and R. Gopalakrihsnan, Executive Director, Tata Sons, at the inauguration of Advinus head office and development centre in Bangalore on Thursday.

BANGALORE: Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons, who inaugurated the eight-acre corporate office and drug development centre of Advinus Therapeutics, a Tata enterprise, here on Thursday, said “Ours is a long-term commitment to help a group of dedicated persons who chose to return to India, to do something for their country”. The work at Advinus fits in with other group companies such as those involved in bioinformatics, he felt.

He asked the Advinus team to “retain creative approach in the years ahead and be humble enough to seek help from other inter-connected disciplines such as bio-engineering that help pharmaceutical research”. Having created global visibility through information technology, India was now moving into making a mark in life sciences related industries.

Advinus Managing Director and CEO, Rashmi Barbhaiya, said the two lakh sq. ft. facility in Bangalore would offer world-class facilities to overseas partners. “We have chosen to stay away from generic drugs and focus on specialised medications and our own drug discovery work”.

Executive Director of Tata Sons, R. Gopalakrishnan, said the Tata’s would be more than equity partners with Advinus.

The Rs. 200-crore Advinus Therapeutics is following as business model completing the work done at its drug discovery centre in Pune. “Drug discovery has long gestation and high risks and we have already formed an alliance with a global major, Merck, offering substantial cost advantages. This means a foreign company paying us fees on a contract basis, can try out different molecules and improve the success factor,” Mr. Barbhaiya, said.

The income from the drug development centre in Bangalore is spent on the drug discovery centre in Pune, without having to ask the Tatas or other investors for more funding, Mr. Barbhaiya told reporters. The molecules developed in Pune, get tested here.

While Advinus retains the intellectual property rights, it may outlicence some drugs or work on a royalty basis, as with Merck.

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