Health Care Global Enterprises (HCG) which is the largest network of oncology care in South East Asia has entered into strategic partnerships with leading pharma companies in India for translational research in cancer drug development. The partnership efforts are through HCG's wholly owned subsidiary Triesta Sciences which has a bio-repository mainly for breast and colorectal cancer. Tissues and cancerous organs of all cancers are stored here for its team of medical scientists work on the development of personalized medicine.

In this connection, HCG has struck the alliances with Fresenius Kabi Oncology erstwhile Dabur Pharma, Intas and Dr. Reddy's.

The alliances with pharma companies allow HCG-Triesta to increase its participation in R&D initiatives to develop drugs that are tailored for personalized therapies. It has devised a combination of comprehensive molecular testing with specific molecular assays to ascertain the protein levels, gene mutations to examine the disease status. Other advantages of the association are increased opportunities in clinical trials and purchase of cancer drugs directly from the pharma majors with no direct involvement of distributors, Dr. BS Ajai Kumar, chairman, HCG told Pharmabiz.

Triesta has a full fledged Reference Laboratory, R&D and clinical research centres. It is supported with a detailed cancer registry programme, tissue banking and frozen tissue repository facility for biomarker research activities. The company had invested. Rs 50 lakh to set-up the bio-repository and would infuse further funds as the research projects increase, he added.

The bio-repository helps in the analysis for unknown biomarkers and minimizes research costs for future studies. Samples obtained in some of the studies are available on a one time-only basis making it critical to handle and store these samples carefully.

Among the research projects underway are with Dr. Reddy's for a tumour study. With Fresenius Kabi Oncology, HCG will be collaborating in a few weeks for a research project. With GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) HCG has partnered for clinical trials.

Further it is also working closely with leading hospitals in the country to have access to a large database of patients for participation in research studies.

With cancer affecting 2.5 million patients annually in India, oncologists are looking at faster cancer diagnosis and targeted therapy. This can happen only with translational research which requires tumour samples along with the clinical information to perform a high-quality basic science research. The growing incidence of the dreaded disease can make India set up the 'largest' tumour bank in the world which could be accessed by researchers globally, said Dr. Ajai Kumar.

Oncology demands cutting edge technology and treatment options. Rapid advances in personalized medicine that focus on stem cells, biotechnology and nanotechnology are the ongoing interests of research. This is where HCG-Triesta is expected to make inroads into the science of cancer and its treatment modalities, he said.