Biocon’s chairman and managing director Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is betting big on the oral insulin drug that the company is scheduled to unveil next March. Now that the markets are picking up, she also said the firm would look at listing its research division Syngene. Dr Shaw spoke to ET NOW on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the Great Lakes Institute of Management, where she shared her experiences in setting up and growing Biocon with the B-school.
Excerpts from the Interview:
Biocon has aggressive plans in the monoclonal antibodies space through your recent partnerships with Mylan. What are the details of this partnership? Is it a profit sharing model? Will products be marketed under the Biocon brand?
The partnership envisages a profit-sharing business model for the markets of EU and US. And in the rest of the world, both the partners will be marketing their products through a co-marketing strategy. We will be marketing our own brands. Mylan has the sole responsibility of marketing these products in the Europe and US.
What are your plans for insulin? Are you taking it to the whole world by expanding marketing presence? There were talks of clinical trials in the EU and US?
Insulin and insulin analogues is a big play for us. And that’s certainly one of the big growth drivers that we have factored into our growth trajectory. We certainly want to expand our global footprint. We will do this through global partnerships as well as Biocon’s own presence in select markets such as Middle East and Germany. Apart from those and a few other markets, we would largely market through partnerships.
The NPPA recently brought your Basalog drug under price control. What are your views on this?
Basalog does not come under the purview of NPPA. It has been wrongly classified. There is a provision under the drug price control order, which actually talks about biotech drugs being exempt for five years, especially when they are developed and commercialized in India. So, I think it has been wrongly classified and NPPA needs to make that correction so we don’t come under NPPA.
There is a lot of talk about the bio-similar space. The guidelines are in place for EU, Japan and the process is underway in the US. Your marketing a biosimilar called Glargine in India. Will you take this global?
Absolutely. As I mentioned, insulin and insulin analogues, which includes Glargine would certainly be a global play for us.
What about analogues such as Lispro and Aspart? Is Biocon working on this too? Yes, we are looking at the whole analogue space. So, it won’t be just Glargine. We will be developing other analogues.
What about listing of your research division Syngene? You had plans for that a year back.
Yes, we are certainly looking at doing that. I think we are looking for the opportune moment.Is Biocon focusing on bringing blockbuster innovative drugs to the market or will you focus on generics in the biological space?
I think we are one of the few companies that have advanced programs. The one that we are really betting on is oral insulin. We will be the world’s first developer of oral insulin, if it works. We are keeping our fingers crossed because by March we will know if we have made such a product. This is a very exciting program because it’s not about insulin in a tablet. Its about a new diabetic therapy because of the delivery profile that we have created in this molecule and it can be a game changer in diabetes management because early insulinization is a new, important concept backed by biologists.
Source: The Economic Times
