Biocon's year-old bio-insulin, Insugen is a key growth driver in the coming years and the company is optimistic of grabbing a 10 per cent market share within 8-12 months, according to Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and managing director, Biocon Limited.
"We will not be able to disclose any sales performance and production capacity details at the moment for competitive reasons," stated Dr Shaw in a telephonic interview to Pharmabiz after the Q4 results which did not provide an indication on revenue generated from Insugen which was launched in April last year.
The new generation Insugen has been an important contributor to our top and bottom line growth for FY'05-06. "We are gaining market share not only in India, but in other parts of the world. Going forward we see this as an important product for the company. With Europe introducing guidelines to market insulin, we are gearing up to address the European market opportunity, stated Dr. Shaw.
Right now, Insugen is marketed only in the Middle East, Latin America and India. In India, Insugen is gaining a good quality image and doctors have accepted its proven efficacy.
Current, insulin market is estimated to be around Rs 350 crore and registering 40 percent growth rate with leading players like Novo Nordisk, Elli Lily, Biocon, USV and Wockhardt in the fray. "Aggressive promotion of early insulin use in type II diabetes where the pancreatic cells are spared is proving to be a classic marketing strategy which is likely to build-up the insulin usage in the coming decade," stated VR Kannan, pharma consultant.
Biocon has developed Insugen using a unique Pichia Expression, a yeast expression system that secretes pro-insulin in an extra-cellular manner which enables an elegant purification process for Insulin. According to the company the product is India's most clinically validated r-DNA insulin. It is manufactured at Asia's largest Human Insulin facility of Biocon Biopharmaceutical plant located on the 90 acre Biocon Park at Bommasandra in the outskirts of Bangalore.