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Avestha to raise Euro 25 mn for global expansion

Our Bureau, BangaloreFriday, December 23, 2005, 08:00 Hrs  [IST]

Avestha Gengraine Technologies Pvt Ltd (Avesthagen), India’s first discovery-based biotech company, will be raising Euro 25 million from a private equity placement in Europe (name not disclosed) for expanding its existing offices in UK, US and Sweden. All these are part of its efforts in going global. The company which is now a recognised integrated service provider in the area of pharmaceuticals, food and preventive personalised medicine, has also set up a scientific advisory committee under the chairmanship of Prof. Jacques Weil, director, CNRS-IBMP, France,to chart out future growth of the company. Sequel to its global forays, the company has announced the induction of Dr Barry J Furr, former chief scientific officer and head of research at AstraZeneca and Dr Simon Best, founder-chairman of Ardana Plc, UK, to Avesthagen’s Board of Directors. They are also members of the newly constituted scientific advisory committee along with Prof. Marc Van Montagu, director, IPBO, Belgium. The company has invested Rs. 50 crore to set up a dedicated advanced laboratory and pilot manufacturing facility to be established on 2,50,000 sq. ft. area on the two acres property at the EPIP area in Whitefield in the outskirts of Bangalore. The eleven-storied facility designed by the architect Hafeez Contractor is expected to be ready in April 2007. In the meanwhile, going by the increased pace of work, the company has made an additional investment of Rs. 11 crore for a make shift facility for its mini pilot scale manufacture unit and a GLP and cGMP compliant laboratory at the Innovator Block located opposite to the existing facility at the Discovery Block at ITPL, Whitefield. The facility will accommodate the units of bioinformatics, genomics and microbials. The new plans will see the company romp up its personnel from the present 170 to 300 by end of 2006. “The current financial year indicates robust activity in product launches under nutraceuticals, biopharmaceuticals and agri-biotech. In bio pharmaceuticals alone there will be 11 products in the area of autoimmune disease and oncology,” stated Dr Villoo Morawala Patell at a press conclave. In 2005, Avesthagen established multiple joint ventures with global and Indian partners such as AstraZeneca for genomics and metabolomics for infectious diseases, Novartis for molecular biology, BioMérieux for cancers, emerging pathogens and infectious disease diagnostics, Nestle and Itochu for nutraceuticals, University of Minnesota for obesity control, TNO for nutrigenomics, CCBR for diagnostics and nutraceuticals, Cipla for Biopharmaceuticals Imperial College, London, and Cambridge for population genetics study and infectious diseases programmes. “The company which generated almost 70 per cent of its business from Research Process Outsourcing (RPO) now has 30 per cent of revenues coming in from this sector because of strategic alliances initiated with global customers,” stated Dr Patel. According to Dr. Patel, all these alliances have brought in quicker revenues, built our expertise in the systems biology platform and earned royalties and Intellectual Property positions.

 
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