India’s research and development (R&D) capabilities have attracted the attention of global pharma and biotech companies. The growing R&D prowess of companies like AstraZeneca, Biocon , Jubilant Biosys and Dr. Reddy’s stand as a testimony to this.

India’s key strengths are its talented technical pool, chemistry expertise and bioinformatics ability. Supporting the talent are the infrastructure of research labs and increasing inter-university research efforts and institute and industry collaborations, said Prof, G Padmanabhan, scientist emeritus and former director Indian Institute of Science.

The country’s process re-engineering expertise, strengths in medicinal chemistry and ability to deliver biology related research make India an integral part of global drug discovery programmes. With pure chemistry literally disappearing from the US and Europe, global pharma-biotech majors are focusing on India to accelerate the development of the drug pipeline. The crunch in R&D investments has resulted in off-loading drug discovery projects to India because it is almost 30 per cent lower compared to the costs in the West. The attrition ‘per molecule’ can also be managed better here, said Sri Mosur, CEO & president, Global Drug Discovery and Development, Jubilant Biosys.

India’s future lies in vaccine and small molecule development. The emerging opportunities, reverse brain drain together with India’s chem-bio strength will definitely increase research partnerships, licensing deals and revenue streams, he added.

India’s leading research labs are CCMB, Hyderabad, IISc, National Centre for Biological Sciences and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Research in Bangalore.

Among the leading pharma biotech companies carrying out research are Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company Ltd (SPARC). Dr. Reddy’s, Nicholas Primal, Daichi Ranbaxy Life Sciences Research, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Biocon, AstraZeneca Research India, Lupin and Torrent to name a few.

More consolidation is expected in the R&D globally due to global economic slowdown. The international pharma biotech majors are viewing to partner with companies with good research projects, said Dr. Krishna M . Ella, Chairman, Bharat Biotech International Ltd.

The inherent chemistry expertise and emerging biology partnerships are witnessing a reverse brain drain of scientific workforce. Global companies are getting comfortable with India as a proven domain to pursue discovery and translational research. Government of India through the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have provided funding options. The venture capitalists are also beginning to offer the required seed capital. Start-ups with innovative and enabling technologies are set to fuel opportunities for the global majors to negotiate strategy for collaborative research, informed Mosur.

According to some of the leading experts , in the coming years , research will focus on vaccines and biologics. This is because vaccines have the capability to address diseases of the future like H1N1, AIDS and cancer. In fact large Indian pharma-biotech companies are looking at new chemical entities (NCEs) because the country has an inherent strength in chemistry. This is where much of the research projects are on . The Indian scientists have the ability to comprehend and undertake research on chemicals. There has been considerable activity in the international and Indian research and development space to focus on generics and biosimilars.

On an average,investments in R&D are anywhere between four to 25 per cent annually. The way forward is to strengthen expertise in research. A number of international majors are looking for alliances in India for research. There is ample support coming in from the government of India to take research projects forward. These include CSIR, DBT and ICMR funding.

In 2008, the Department of Biotechnology also introduced the BIRAP and BIPP to support research efforts in the biotech space.

There are several significant research efforts going on at the institutes. These include TB drug studies, vaccine which has shown a high magnitude immune response on engineered mouse model, Department of biochemistry of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is an advanced stage of research for developing drug targets for malaria and development of DNA rabies vaccine.

Another area of research which is now beginning to take off is the pre-clinical studies on molecules which involves studies on animals. This is where four companies in Bangalore have made rapid strides. One is the start-up enterprise Bioneeds Laboratory Animals & Preclinical Services, a contract research organization (CRO).

“Our research centre is a science complex where pharma and biotech companies can have space to conduct preclinical studies for their novel compounds according to CPCSEA & GLP (Good Laboratory Practices) guidelines. Companies can lease well-established animal experimentation rooms, which are of international standards with controlled temperature, humidity and air handling. These companies have the benefit of utilizing hematology, biochemistry, microbiology, histopathology and bio-analytical laboratories, said Vinay Babu, Managing Director, Bioneeds adding that scene for the pre-clinical services in India offers promising opportunities”.

The second is Aurigene,part of Dr. Reddy’s and pre-clinical profiling (including ADME/ PK studies and efficacy studies). It's strengths in terms of therapeutic focus are oncology, metabolic disorders and autoimmune diseases

The third is Advinus Therapeutics which is a Tata-promoted life sciences research and development company with extensive expertise in pharmaceutical R&D.

The fourth is Jubilant Biosys, the subsidiary of Jubilant Organosys which is currently in the process of expanding its animal facilities, which includes a nude mice facility for research efforts across oncology, metabolic diseases and CNS therapeutic areas. The animal facility is located in Bangalore close to its full-fledged research centre in the Yeshwantpur Industrial Area. The expanded unit will also allow captive breeding for rats, mice, guinea pigs and rabbits, besides a large animal facility for dogs that will bolster its pre-clinical services.