Laurus Labs, a pharma firm, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad to fund the Centre of Executive Education (CEE) programme intended towards commercialisation of technology for research scientists and professionals in pharma, biotech, agriculture and other related life sciences segments.

As part of this collaboration, Laurus labs has granted a one-time funding of Rs.30 lakhs to ISB to enable it to partially fund up to 25 deserving candidates of the programme on ‘Technology Commercialisation’ designed and delivered by the ISB’s Centre of Executive Education (CEE).

This programme is targeted at research scientists, professionals from life science sector, government officials involved in research agencies and employees of financial institutions funding technology commercialisation. “This contribution is a way of expressing my gratitude to my alma mater. This funding will further strengthen the ISB’s vision to support talented professionals and at the same time build closer ties with the school,” explained Dr Satyanarayana Chava, CEO, Laurus Labs.

The programme on technology commercialisation is scheduled to be delivered from July 29 to August 1, 2013. The main objective of the programme is to introduce the key concepts of commercialisation to the participants. Its curriculum has been designed with extensive inputs from the Biocon Cell for Innovation Management, at the ISB. The programme seeks to discern, clarify and delineate the interface of science and business, and participants would get an understanding of the set of skills, knowledge and expertise required.

“It is the biggest alumni grants we have ever received, such initiatives really enable positive atmosphere for innovative research and will go a long way in strengthening the school’s efforts in making world class education accessible to many more deserving candidates,” said Deepak Chandra, deputy dean of ISB while announcing Laurus lab’s contribution.

With this pact, it brings together ISB’s CEE and Laurus labs to bridge the gap between emergence of innovative technologies and their commercialisation.

With a broad and integrated portfolio of products Laurus labs initiative to support ISB’s CEE programme is a big step forward to instil confidence among the emerging professionals and researchers of innovative technology. In fact today, Laurus has emerged as a segment-leading manufacturer of high quality APIs, a preferred partner for NCE development and manufacture and a trusted source of specialty ingredients for the nutraceutical industry.

Talking about research and development initiatives taken by Laurus labs, Dr Satyanarayana Chava said that the firm has spent about six per cent of its revenues towards research and development and had marked a turnover of Rs.720 crore during the last fiscal. The main focus of the firm is on active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) on anti-retroviral drugs for HIV and other oncology related products.