Genotypic Technology (P) Ltd., a micro array and next generation sequencing(NGS) service major has beefed up its efforts to strengthen its in-house research efforts and look at development of Intellectual Property (IP) products. The decision comes in with the demand from both domestic and international pharma and biotech companies for a range of niche products in NGS, micro array and bio informatics.
In this regard, the company is seeking a certification from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) to strengthen its R & D initiatives. With the NGS being the future of Indian life sciences industry, the company has installed three advanced machines to collate the advanced genomic information and is now getting ready to expand on its capacity and portfolio of technologies.
The company has been a high-end genomic end-to-end service provider for customers across geographies to develop proof–of-concept for projects. A number researchers too have availed its services for publications in leading journals. It has completed 300 projects using NGS, driven by its team of biological and bioinformatics experts.
“Over the last few years, we have been able to bag orders from global and Indian customers. The revenue generation has been 50:50 from both markets. To chart out the next phase of growth, we are looking to develop novel microarray application and integrate it with other technologies to broaden the scale of tools in systems biology research. We intend to also develop methodologies to analyse varied biological data for gene sequencing and gene expression. Besides, with the technology and scientific talent we are scouting for joint projects with industry and academia to explore new avenues in biological research by providing biotechnology research services. This is where DSIR certification is mandated,” Dr Sudha Rao, co-founder and chief operating officer, Genotypic Technology told Pharmabiz.
So long the company funded much of its expansions internally. Going forward, it will look for external assistance in the form of grants from DSIR and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT). “We will develop products, screening tools, focus on insect genomics and healthcare diagnostics apart from generation of population specific data for personalized medicine,” she added.
“There are several in-house projects to unravel the genetic make-up of some native plants, insects and other organisms for which gene sequencing has been carried out and to take these forward we need to be DSIR certified,” said Dr Annadurai S Ramasamy, senior research director, Genotypic Technology.
“With the future focus being healthcare diagnostics and agriculture using NGS, our efforts would be to provide solutions in personalized medicine through genomics platforms. In the area of biopharmaceuticals, 40 per cent of the approvals sought from the Federal Drug Agency are to test the purity profile of contaminants which is done with genomics and this would open up our growth opportunities,” said Dr Ramasamy.
In bioinformatics, Genotypic has developed Biointerpreter which is a tool for microarray, NGS QC Tool that helps quick access to NGS information, Sequence Aided Diagnostics Application (SADA) tool and MedRunner.
Indian genome sequencing market is valued at over Rs.200 crore. Leading names other than Genotypic are Ocimum Biosolutions, Excelrys, Strand Lifesciences, The Centre for Genomic Application (TCGA) part of the Chatterjee Group and Sandor Proteomics.