Dr Bala S Manian, the well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur over the last three decades and who was responsible for successfully starting several life science companies, will be setting up R&D units and drug manufacturing facilities in India. Dr Manian, who was closely associated with the ICICI Knowledge Park, the organisers of the recently concluded International Knowledge Millennium Conference, (IKMC) 2002, from planning to the successful conclusion, told Pharmabiz that he was exploring the possibilities of setting up some units in the south. Asked whether any units would be set up in Hyderabad, Dr Manian said it was too early to commit anything at present. It could be in Hyderabad Bangalore or Chennai or spread over all the three cities.

About the nature of activities he would like to start, Dr Manian said it could be some 'orphaned projects' from the US. He said several projects in the US had become orphaned because the market was too small and the cost of developing the products too high. He said those projects would be cost-effective in India and would serve the unmet need of the developing countries. He will be coming back to India within three months with clear-cut plans and finalise the projects.

Dr Manian, a recipient of the Academy of Motion Picture Award in 1999 for advances in Digital Cinematography, holder of more than 30 patents and author of more than 30 scientific publications, said spending on healthcare would continue to increase for the next several decades driven by demographic factors, but the effort now was to cut costs.

Presenting a paper on " Drug Discovery & Healthcare in the Knowledge Economy - India's Opportunities," Dr Manian said though R&D productivity was the most important factor driving the success of the pharmaceutical industry, a look at the recent trends had shown a discouraging picture. The number of new drugs candidates filed with the US FDA had steadily declined in the last few years, from 42 in 1998 to 34 in 2001. Also while pharmaceutical companies were required to produce 2-3 new drugs per year, to deliver on the earnings promised to the financial community, the top 20 pharmaceutical companies had produced only 0.5 new drugs a year.

While it continues to cost approximately $8 million and take 10-15 years to bring a new drug to the market, 90 per cent of drugs have revenues of less than $180 million, making it difficult to justify such a large R&D investment.

Dr Manian said the problem of depleting pharma pipelines and increased R&D costs would be further exacerbated by the following - it was estimated that $35 billion worth of drugs were expected to come off patent in the next three years and in the future, fewer drugs were likely to have blockbuster revenues (more than $ 500 million) as patient populations were likely to be segmented according to their genetic predisposition to respond to a drug. For example, today's multi-million dollar cholesterol-reducing drug may, in the future, be replaced by 3-4 drugs that target different segments of the patient population, depending on the patients'genetic make-up. But each drug will continue to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.

Dr Manian said India had tremendous potential and could play a significant role in the knowledge-driven global economy. Just as India had become an integral part of the global IT economy, an investment in developing India as a preferred destination for drug discovery and healthcare would yield great results both for the domestic pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and would create new opportunities. And the creation of an entrepreneurial and research-based culture would help the creation of new players and technologies, grow the domestic pharma industry and eventually strengthen India's position in the global pharma industry. However, he said it was becoming clear that there was a significant unmet need for greater efficiencies in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries from a cost, speed and productivity perspective. In other words, a new paradigm was needed, and conferences of this kind could serve as a platform for discussing India's role in solving the problem.

He concluded by saying that India has a great opportunity to create wealth for the nation taking the knowledge route, but more importantly, contribute to the health of the nation.