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TCG Lifesciences today announced a strategic collaboration with Forest Laboratories Holdings, Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Forest Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE: FRX) to discover small molecule drug candidates for inflammatory diseases. Working closely with Forest scientists, Chembiotek, the chemistry and biology arm of TCG Lifesciences will carry out discovery research to identify and optimize lead molecules. The program will focus on an integrated approach involving chemistry, biology, ADME and animal pharmacology capabilities of Chembiotek. Forest will have full ownership of the compounds developed under the collaboration with unencumbered worldwide rights, and will fund all subsequent drug development and commercialization activities. Forest will pay Chembiotek undisclosed discovery milestones.

Commenting on the collaboration with Chembiotek, Dr. Ivan Gergel, Senior Vice President of Scientific Affairs, Forest Laboratories Inc. and President of the Forest Research Institute said, “We are pleased to commence this discovery research collaboration with Chembiotek. This collaboration is a part of our continued commitment to fill our early stage pipeline through discovery partnerships. We believe that, Chembiotek has the commitment throughout its organisation and the quality of personnel necessary for the success of this program.”

According to Mr. Swapan Bhattacharya, Managing Director, TCG Lifesciences, “This partnership with Forest is a culmination of the skills, capabilities and scale of operations we have developed over the past few years at TCG Lifesciences and more specifically at Chembiotek. In addition to our strong chemistry capabilities, we have developed the best biology and computational skills among CROs in India. Our talented and dedicated team of scientists have made this possible. This transaction represents the fourth integrated discovery project we have signed this year. ”

About TCG Lifesciences

TCG Lifesciences is a leading life sciences research and informatics services organisation that enables translational medicine approaches to discovery and development of superior drugs and biologics. TCG Lifesciences offers a new paradigm where focused research and development is seamlessly transitioned from bench to bedside, with laboratory data easily accessed and managed for critical decision making from one enterprise solution across the product development lifecycle.

• Chembiotek is one of the leaders in biology, chemistry, and pre-clinical research services
• Clininvent is uniquely positioned for genomics, proteomics and biomarker research in India, and is already one of the leaders in bio-banking and clinical development services
• LabVantage is the leading provider of thin-client enterprise laboratory informatics solutions

TCG Lifesciences is headquartered in Kolkata, India and has operations in Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune as well as in the United States and the United Kingdom.

For further information, please contact:
Rohit Sharan
Rediffusion DYR PR
098 18 200 359
rohit_sharan@ind.dyr.com

A rapidly growing Indian pharmaceutical and lifesciences market, TCG Lifesciences has carved a niche for itself with its innovative, flexible and integrated solutions. Sushmi Dey explores.

TCG Lifesciences is not just a clinical research organisation but a full-fledged one-stop shop that caters to all needs of global pharmaceutical majors. The company is poised to leverage upon opportunities available in the Indian pharma industry and meet the challenges to save lives. But it is not just a company that works to save lives but also a partner to many pharma companies which save lives. The company derives its energy from its logo which is a positive connotation to life. The logo of the company is derived from the Egyptian symbol of an ankh—a symbol of generation or enduring life.

Inception

TCG Lifesciences was set up by Dr Purnendu Chatterjee as part of The Chatterjee Group. While India just started tasting liberalisation and proved its expertise in providing innovative solutions for servicing the IT sector, Dr Chatterjee, an investor at heart, thought of investing in areas that will prove to be the growth drivers of economy in future.

During the 1990s, when India had already established itself as a crucial component in the growth engine of the service industry and set the stage for other knowledge based services, the global pharma/biotech industry was beginning to feel the pressures relating to high R&D investment in drug discovery. “Coupled with lack of productive drug pipeline, companies abroad were looking for ways to lower costs and enhance efficiencies,” recalls Swapan Bhattacharya, CEO and Head, TCGLS.

According to Bhattacharya, this was the time when TCGLS was conceptualised. “The entire lifesciences industry in India was itself at an inception point. There were no globally established benchmarked players and the Indian product patent regime had not been enacted by the Parliament,” he says. In such an environment it was quite challenging for the company to make a mark.

Bottlenecks

The biggest challenge for the company was to attract the right kind of scientific talent to India, one that was backed by several years of potent international experience. “Also, unlike the IT industry, the lifesciences services industry required high initial capital outlay,” informs a company official. But the company took all the challenges in its stride. While the company started looking for projects, before taking a plunge into the industry, it spent almost two years to evaluate the global market scenario and study the emerging market trends. “A core team of internationally trained personnel was also brought on-board to help the organisation in its pre-marketing efforts. It ultimately enabled us to secure initial contracts even before the facility was fully functional,” remarks Bhattacharya. The three strategies which initially worked for the company were attracting the right people, retaining them and building the infrastructure. “We attracted and retained our clients with the amount of transparency we had in our system. The building of trust was very important and crucial to the business,” asserts a company source.

Business 

TCGLS initiated its operations in India in 2001. The company identified the potential and the business opportunities available in the Indian lifesciences’ market and hence, to capitalise on these opportunities, it soon organised its business into four specialised operating units—Chembiotek Research International, Clin-Invent Research, SilicoGene Informatics and The Centre for Genomic Applications. The company started its work in the country with chemistry capabilities servicing customers in USA and Europe. Initially, it used to undertake only custom synthesis projects. Within a year, the company added medicinal and combinatorial chemistry capabilities and soon in 2002 it became the first company in India with medium to high throughput combinatorial library synthesis capabilities. Moving on a fast track, the company also developed molecular modelling and molecular biology capabilities which in turn helped the company to undertake more value-added and high end assignments for its customers. In 2003, the emerging opportunities in drug development space in India grabbed the company’s attention and hence, Clininvent Research—a clinical trial management company was born. It proved to be a good step for the company. It was elemental in leveraging the company’s existing sales and marketing efforts to offer comprehensive drug discovery and development services platform to its clients. The company in the same year also established SilicoGene Informatics to explore product development and services opportunities for computational and IT applications in the lifesciences sector.

In 2004, The Centre for Genomic Applications (TCGA) was set up as a public private partnership between TCGLS and the Government of India. The centre was set up to address the needs of a large number of commercial and academic research institutions, for commercial scale genomics and proteomics services. According to company officials, the project focused organisational structure helps the company to use their experienced leadership and management expertise in order to grow. The company believes that the Indian pharmaceutical and lifesciences market is rapidly growing and evolving. The company has designed several innovative, flexible and integrated solutions to encompass major segments of these domains.

Services

The company aims to become a preferred outsourcing partner for global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies by providing integrated R&D services. The company has, therefore, built a wide array of capabilities across key segments of drug discovery and development cycle which are unmatched by other CROs. Interestingly, TCGLS provides all the services to its clients. The company asserts that it is self-sufficient and hence, does not outsource but does everything in house. This special feature of the company attracts more clients to it. This, in turn, helps the company to build strong strategic partnerships and gives a competitive advantage over the existing players in the domain. However, the company ensures that all its operations are managed by independent teams. This enables the company to test specific domains against the best in the market and hence, constantly upgrade them to maintain international quality standards and protocols.

Expansions 

TCGLS commenced its chemistry operations in Kolkata. Chembiotek has been the first endeavour of the company. After that, there was no looking back. Today, it is a premier research outsourcing services’ company and is also in the process of adding new capabilities. While the company’s research activities are focused on synthesis of new and improved chemical entities for its customers, to handle scale up work and supply of GMP, the company is planning to set up a new unit in close proximity. “We are more than doubling our capacity (infrastructure and scientific manpower) in Kolkata,” tells Bhattacharya.

Besides, TCGLS took another initiative to launch the IBP at Pune to hand hold pharmacos under one roof. According to company officials, this was in line with the upsurge of many pharma companies in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. Agrees Bhattacharya, “The changing dynamics of the pharma/biotech industry and an expanding client base has given rise to a compelling need to enhance our scientific strength and infrastructure. To meet this need and to increase our footprint across the country, Chembiotek has commenced operations from our second state-of-the-art facility at the IBP at Pune,” he said. Apart from the organic growth, TCGLS is adding pre-clinical and animal toxicology service capabilities to be able to progress drug candidates to IND filing stage.

According to Bhattacharya, the company has plans to build a state-of-the-art animal facility in Pune, but it is also initiating pilot efforts for the same in Kolkata and Pune. While he refused to disclose the identity but said that the company has also joined hands with a GLP compliant toxicology partner in India.

At the other end of the spectrum, plans for the first phase of a cGMP facility in Pune are also taking shape. Thus, TCGLS is on the verge of establishing end-to-end capabilities across the drug development value chain. Company sources assert that it has all the key ingredients required to consolidate its position in the drug discovery services space. The company is fully equipped with molecular biology facility and offers services in computational biophysics, molecular biology, medicinal chemistry, molecular modelling, assay development and generation of biological reagents such as cell lines and proteins. Besides, the company has all the regulatory compliances, global relationships and cost advantage in place. “We are also working towards setting up comprehensive and integrated programmes with leading pharmaceutical companies utilising risk reward sharing coll aboration models,” informs Bhattacharya.

Business strategies to grow

TCGLS aims to achieve its desired growth through collaborations and innovative research activities which would be in compliance to stringent timeliness and delivery of flexible client requirements.

The company is focussing on getting projects of strategic nature, which involves calculated risks but has the capability to take TCGLS to the next orbit.

“We have already begun to witness a paradigm shift with respect to partnering models which are evolving from the plain vanilla transactional relationships to more strategic partnerships,” informs Bhattacharya. While the company is constantly maintaining its eye on the cost cutting measures, it refuses to compromise when it comes on to passing value to clients.

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While The Chatterjee Group (TCG) – a US-based investment entity set up by Dr Purnendu Chatterjee — poured money into Haldia Petrochem on one end, it has also been building scale in the contract research space through TCG Life Sciences on the other. SWAPAN BHATTACHARYA, the head of the company and TCG director, tells Business Standard how it is slated to emerge among the top three life science research companies in the country.

How is the business structured today? I believe TCG Life Sciences is a company incorporated in the US.

Yes it is. That company has three wholly-owned subsidiaries in India — Chembiotek (for synthesis of new or improved chemical entities), SilicoGene Informatics (for software development) and Clininvent (for clinical trials). We have also set up a Centre for Genomic Applications in partnership with the government.

What is the client profile of these companies? 

We started operating in 2001 with Chembiotek. We have 35 clients today spread across US, Europe and Japan. Of the top 20 pharma firms globally, 15 are our clients. The opportunity is huge.

With spends of $80 billion in this area, we don’t see why $20-25 billion could not be outsourced relatively soon. Scaling up will happen in the next 3-5 years. Our plan is to gain critical mass in this area so that capacity does not hinder our ability to grow.

How would you define “critical mass”? 

We have a team of 500 today comprising scientists, engineers and IT professionals. Our goal is to be 1,000 people strong by March 2007 and increase that to 2,000 in the next phase. We would like to believe that at some point we could have 5,000 people working. We started with 20 chemists.

Now we are in every stage of the pharma chain. At some point in the future, we may choose to integrate this chain by merging these separate companies to provide a one-stop-shop for contract, or rather, collaborative research.

What are the typical margins in this business? 

Operating margins are about 20 per cent. I think this is a sustainable margin.

Who do you identify as your competitors? 

Syngene (of Biocon) and GVK Biosciences are the large players in this market, and the third will be us. In terms of the integrated model, we are ahead.

Will we be debating captive research versus outsourcing in this field soon? 

It is not very far away. Companies will choose to get dedicated operations set up on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis as Lilly has done in China though it has not exercised the “T” or transfer option. It will happen here too though we do not see it as a threat.

With a presence in every step of the pharma chain, why do you stop short of owning a product and marketing it? 

There are companies which do it. We do not, as that requires a different set of skills, structure and funding. We can do research and development, but art of selling is difficult. Only large pharma is involved there.

All the work that we do is on the request of clients and we have no intention of changing that, though there are contract research companies that have become drug discovery companies. It does not seem to be a very viable model.

Computational genomics, proteomics and drug design get a boost with the Centre for Genomic Application adopting high performance computing solutions to cut down the research time and costs, reports Sudhir Chowdhary.

Advances in genomics and molecular biology are opening up new avenues for improved healthcare. The map of the human genome is expected to lead the way to more opportunities for pharmaceutical breakthroughs and eventually to more and better medicines, which will provide a better quality of life.

The Centre for Genomic Application’s (TCGA) focus is not restricted to providing life science services alone. A collaboration between Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) research institute, and The Chatterjee Group (TCG), TCGA has been established, with advanced technologies, to cut down the research time and cost in the area of genomics and proteomics. “This is necessary if India has to be a global player in life sciences research, under the new patent regime,” says TCGA head K Narayanasamy. “The idea is to liberate scientists from mundane day to day activities of managing research facilities by providing such high performance computing facilities,” he adds.

So far, restricted to undertaking projects from state-owned research institutes like IGIB, CDRI, CCMB and IMTECH, TCGA TCGA is now expecting to market itself as a well-equipped facility for high-end biology research. It is offering its research facilities to all other R&D institutes on a sharing basis. The centre expects to take up contract work in sequencing, genotyping, protein sequencing and finger-printing, primer design and synthesis and expression profiling using micro arrays as well as provide incubation facilities for biotechnology start-ups.

Along with the Chatterjee Group-Indian Statistical Institute Centre for Population Genomics, Kolkata, TCGA will build genetic-epidemiological research capacity in India. Their research-training project focuses on genetic epidemiology and ethical conduct of human genetics research in India, with particular emphasis on statistical and computational genomics and molecular genomics. TCGA is also working with Institute of Human Behavior and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) on a pharmacogenomics project for anti-epileptic drugs.

Among the sophisticated machines in the centre is the Sequenom Mass Array to meet the demands of high-throughput SNP analysis in the post genome era. With the advent of genomics and proteomics, custom-based laboratory services and products is estimated to be worth approximately Rs 100 crore with a 30% growth year-on-year predicted over the next five years — the market would be worth Rs 300 crore by 2007. According to Mr Narayanasamy, the services consist of a wide array of complete solutions in genomics and proteomics services like high throughput DNA sequencing, genotyping, oligo-nucleotide synthesis, microarray services and proteomics services. “With India being touted as the future hub of global biomedical research, TCGA expects to help the Indian scientific community utilize state-of-the-art facilities without really owning it,” he adds.

IGIB director SK Brahmachari says, India loses many contract projects related to annotation of genetic sequences simply due to the lack of adequate computing prowess. Interestingly, IGIB is making a strong pitch for buying the world’s best and most expensive supercomputer — Blue Gene — for biological research. Designed and developed by IBM in collaboration with the US government, the Blue Gene series supercomputers are the world’s undisputed number one in supercomputing. When fully developed, the final version of the Blue Gene machine is likely to have a peak speed of 360 teraflops. One teraflop means a computer capability of carrying out one trillion floating point operations in every second. As of now, Blue Gene machines are primarily used for cutting edge biological research involving protein folding and genetics.

TCGA has already deployed a four-teraflop HP supercomputer running the Linux operating system to advance its life sciences computational biology research. This is the most powerful HP supercomputer in Asia and vaults TCGA into the ranks of global research institutions such as Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Sandia National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory that have implemented scaleable, multi-teraflop HP supercomputing systems. IGIB’s scientific exploration ranges from genes to proteins and from biotechnology to pharmaceuticals and personalized medicine. The HP Cluster Platform supercomputer with XC System Software will be used to meet these increasingly complex needs of life sciences research that have advanced beyond genomics, says Dr Brahmachari.

Taking a holistic view, the greatest achievement of bioinformatics methods, the Human Genome Project, is currently being completed. Because of this, the nature and priorities of bioinformatics research and applications are changing. This will affect bioinformatics in several ways:

• We now possess multiple whole genomes to look for differences and similarities between all the genes of multiple species. From such studies, we can draw particular conclusions about species and general ones about evolution — often referred to as comparative genomics
• There are now technologies designed to measure the relative number of copies of a genetic message (levels of gene expression) at different stages in development or disease or in different tissues. Technologies such as DNA microarrays will grow in importance.
• Researchers highlight that there will be a general shift in emphasis (of sequence analysis especially) from genes themselves to gene products. This will lead to:
• Attempts to catalogue the activities and characterize interactions between all gene products (in humans): proteomics)
• Attempts to crystallize and, or, predict the structures of all proteins (in humans): structural genomics.

Though there are huge growth opportunities, the challenges of drug discovery, approval, and marketing are significant. Individual business decisions in the pharmaceutical industry carry enormous long-term significance due to the high cost of bringing a new medication to market.

Also in recent years, the life sciences industry has seen dramatic changes. Blockbuster drugs are becoming increasingly hard to find, approved drugs have been pulled from the market for safety concerns, pipelines are short, time to market is long, and costs are soaring. As drug companies face tighter competition and declining stock prices, life sciences firms are feeling the strain.

The completion of the Human Genome Project promises to usher in a new era of biomedical advancement, but the path from genome sequence to disease cure is complex and will require significant contributions from the mathematical and information sciences for its illumination. This has created a tremendous amount of data and an equally vast need for computing resources to analyze that data. Unfortunately, not all researchers have access to such computing power, and not all institutions have the ability to acquire such capital intensive resources.

Backed with advanced technologies, TCGA is plugged in to the market realities to spearhead India’s prowess in life sciences research.

Chembiotek Research International Pvt Limited, a subsidiary of the Chatterjee Group Life Sciences (TCGLS), is currently conducting clinical tests of a cancer-related molecule and is hoping to achieve a breakthrough within the next five years.

“The research is now in the critical phase-one stage. Normally, clinical trials run for five to 10 years, but cancer trials tend to be shorter,” head of TCGLS Swapan Bhattacharya told newsmen at the TCGLS’ Salt Lake facilities here.

Chembiotek is one of the Indian organisations working together with the US National Institutes of Health on a $26 million grant.

Earlier, during a presentation before Under Secretary for International Affairs at the US Treasury Department Timothy Adams, the TCGLS head said with the average cost of drug development presently standing at around $1 billion, a huge venture gap existed in the sector.

TCGLS has signed product patent agreements with a number of companies to offset the gap.

The company, which mainly provided customised biotech solutions, now served 40 clients worldwide, including some leading pharmaceutical companies, Bhattacharya said, adding TCGLS planned to increase its strength of professionals to 1,000 by the year-end from the present 500.

During the current financial, TCGLS plans to add pre- clinical and animal toxicology service capabilities and is on the verge of establishing end-to-end capabilities across the drug development value chain.

“So, TCGLS is working towards comprehensive, integrated programmes with leading pharmaceutical companies through the Risk-Reward-Sharing and Bot Models,” he said.

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Drug discovery services are a new opportunity for Indian pharma. And a clutch of entrepreneurs have started making their moves

 India’s prospects in clinical trials, one part of the chain that is being outsourced, has been well documented (see ‘The Booming Business Of Drug Testing’, BW, 14 October 2002). This article deals with some of the lesser-known parts of the outsourcing opportunity – services that actually support the process of discovering new drugs and testing their efficacy. This is called discovery research outsourcing.

Kolkata, a city with no pharma industry to speak of, is an unlikely setting for a drug discovery services company’s operations. Nonetheless, Kolkata is where TCG Lifesciences, a project of the US-based The Chatterjee Group (TCG), is based. In the last four years, TCG Lifesciences has made four distinct forays into research.

TCGA, a private/public partnership, is part of a six-institute initiative. In the year since its inception, it has published a paper on the Indian genome variation database (which studies genes of different populations), a project that will align with the international database of the genome types of the world, the HAPMAP project.

Chembiotek, TCG’s drug discovery services company, is its engine of growth. This business unit offers combinatorial chemistry, medicinal chemistry, custom synthesis, process chemistry and biological research capabilities. It has also moved into collaborative research projects. Clininvent Research is its clinical trial management company and Silicogene operates in the informatics space. Says Swapan Bhattacharya, CEO, TCG Lifesciences: “TCG will be one of the significant global players in the drug discovery space.” Amen to that.

In the race to attract global drug companies seeking a suitable destination to do clinical research, India could well pip its dragon competitor. And the India-advantage literally lies in its genes.

The country has a heterogeneous mix of people, unlike China’s homogenous population and this could tip the balance in favour of India, said Mr Swapan Bhattacharya who heads TCG Lifesciences.

Several gene types such as Caucasians, Mogoloids and Australoids can be found in India, explained an industry representative. So if a company is looking for different gene pools in a single location, India stands to gain.

The drawback is that data is not readily available at the moment on what gene pools are available and where, he added.

At present, the global offshoring potential in life sciences and healthcare is about $220 billion, with an annual growth rate of 8-10 per cent. India currently corners about $280 million in this sector and can garner about $12 billion of this pie by 2015, according to industry estimates.

India and China are becoming favoured drug-discovery and clinical research destinations for global drug companies looking to keep a firm grip on cost.

But venture capital firms too are flocking to these regions looking for opportunities, observes Mr Bhattacharya.

There is a global productivity crisis with drug companies putting out about 25 new drugs into the market in a year, half of what it used to some years ago. Global drug companies spend about 20 per cent of their sales in discovery research and they are under pressure to justify these expenses. The balance is in bringing new and innovative products into the market, keeping a grip on costs at the same time.

The recent financial support that Dr Reddy’s Laboratories got from ICICI Venture is just the beginning of more such tie-ups to come, he observed.

Outlining some of the other “compelling” reasons why India beckons as a destination for research, he said, the cost of innovation in India is 1/5th to 1/7th of its cost in the US or Europe, with a higher return on investment to the research dollar.

India recently kicked-in the product-patent protection regime, it has a large base of skilled manpower and houses the highest number of manufacturing plants outside the US, having regulatory approvals from the United States Food and Drug Administration.

The $10-million TCG Life Sciences, a part of The Chatterjee Group (TCG) promoted by Purnendu Chatterjee, is evaluating its options on entering the animal trials business by either setting up a greenfield project or acquiring an existing laboratory.

“Among the activities of TCG Lifesciences, animal trials is an area we plan to get into,” said Swapan Bhattacharya, acting head of TCG Lifesciences and a director of TCG.

“Between developing a drug molecule and human trials, there is a period when it has to be tested on animals, mainly for toxicity tests,” he explained.

“Setting up our own facility will take about two years, while acquiring an existing one will be faster. The whole process could be completed within a few months,” Bhattacharya said.

While pharmaceutical companies have such laboratories, there are about five independent testing laboratories in the country. “We are in discussions with some of them to commence work in collaboration ,” he added. He didn’t give away further details.

The norms for animal trials are stricter in India than in other countries. There are other issues, such as cruelty against animals, too. The third option will be to look outside the country, like China, where the laws are more friendly for firms that want to conduct trials, Bhattacharya explained.

“India is expected to emerge as the preferred destination for outsourcing clinical trials over the next five years and we wish to make the most of it,” he said.

“India is expected to emerge as the preferred destination for outsourcing clinical trials over the next five years and we wish to make the most of it,” he said.

To start with, the initial investment in such a set up is around $2-3 million, which can go up to $10 million later, he added.

TCG Lifesciences is integrated drug discovery research and development company with four units, each working separately with clients in their individual domains.

The Centre for Genomic Applications is a shared facility with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. It works in the field of genomic and proteomic research, which determines which disease is to be targeted.

Chembiotek Research International is the drug discovery unit and focuses on synthesis of new and improved chemical entities.

TCG Life Sciences, a company promoted by The Chatterjee Group (TCG) of Purnedu Chatterjee, has plans to enter animal trials, either by picking up an existing third-party facility in India or by building its won setup.

According to Dr Swapan Bhattarcharya, head of TCG Life Sciences and a director of TCG, animal trials form a critical missing link in TCG Life Sciences’s activities.

“Between developing a chemistry, there is a period before you can go human trials when you have to do animal trials, mainly for toxicity tests,” he said.

“If we decide to set up our own facility, then it could take up to two years,” he said. Acquisition of an existing facility would be tolook outside of India, at countries like China, where the regime is easier. TCG Life Sciences aims to become a company that can offer an integrated range of services akin to what pharmaceuticals major do on the R&D front.

“Overtime, when all of these are separately benchmarked, we may actually merge them together,” he said. At present, the four outfits of TCG Life Sciences are working separately with clients. The Centre for Genomic Applications (TCGA) is in the first stage, or genomic and proteomics research, when one decides what the target should be while tackling a disease. It is a shared facility set up with the CSIR.

Then comes Chembiotek Research international, the drug discoveryoutfit. The third is animal testing, which TCG Life does not have as yet. The final link is Clininvent Research, the clinical trails outfits. SilicoGene Informatics is the common thread, specialising in software. He said TCG Life Sciences could be looking at the so called. Third World diseases, in which there is a “huge oppotunity”, but which western multinationals tend to ignore because of the high costs of developing a new drug.

For example, TCG Life Sciences is doing a study, fully funded by a US government agency, on typhoid and cholera while it stays away from vaccine discovery, it is studying how vaccines interact with different population sets so that better vaccines can be developed. TCG Life Sciences is founded by debt and equity in a 1:1 ratio. Dr Bhattacharya declined to state revenue figure for TCG Life, but said it is over $10m.

TCG Life Sciences, a company promted by The Chatterjee Group (TCG) of Purnendu Chatterjee, has plans to enter animal trials, either by picking up an existing third-part facility in India or by building its own set-up.

According to Dr Swapan Bhattacharya, head of TCG Life, animal trials form a critical missing link in TCG Life Sciences’ activities. “Between developing a chemistry lead, there is a period before you can go to human trials when you have to do animal trials, mainly fortoxicitytests,”he said. “If we decide to set up our own facility, then it could take up to two years.”

Acquisition of an existing facility would be faster by a few months. In India, there are five or so independent animal testing labs. The third option would be to look outside India, at countries like China where the regime is easier.

TCG Life Sciences aims to become a company that can offer an integrated range of services akin to what pharmaceuticals major do on the R&D front. “Over time, when all of these are separately benchmarked, we may acually merge them together,” he said.

At present, the four outfits of TCG Life Science are working separately with clients.

The Centre for Genomic Applications (TCGA) is in the fist stage of genomic and proteomics research, when one decides what the target should be while tackling a disease. It is a shared facility set up with CSIR