Piramal Life may develop TB drug with leads from Antarctica

Piramal Life Sciences, the demerged research arm of pharmaceutical major Nicholas Piramal India (NPIL), may become the first company to successfully develop a tuberculosis drug whose leads are isolated from the living organisms found in ice brought from the Antarctica region.

"The scientists with Piramal Life Sciences (PLSL) has identified additional leads that will help to develop drugs to treat tuberculosis and other infections," revealed Swati Piramal, director, Nicholas Piramal.

"Though focus of our research was on leads for cancers and infection, we identified additional leads that can develop drugs for tuberculosis. It is too early to comment on commercialisation aspects since we are still in the preclinical stage and many years of further research is required," she said.

As reported earlier in Business Standard, the scientists at NPIL had isolated two key drug leads for cancers and infections from live microbes found in the ice brought from Antarctica, where temperature lowers to minus 50 degree celsius.

A senior scientist from NPIL had visited Antarctica from December 2005 to March 2006 as part of a scientific expedition organised by the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa.

This was the first exploration by an Indian pharmaceutical company in association with the Indian government to develop drug leads from geographies such as Antarctica, where rare microbes with different genetic constitution exist.

Any benefit derived out of the collaboration have to be shared with the government and other stakeholders, said Swati Piramal.

Though microbes cannot be patented, potential molecular structures developed from the microbes using medicinal chemistry and computer drug design are patentable and can be commercially exploited for the benefit of human beings. An international treaty bans commercial exploitation of the Antarctican region.

She elaborated that basic research from these microbes were focused on Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium responsible for difficult-to-treat infections in humans.

Nicholas Piramal, which conducts extensive research in plant-based (phyto) pharmaceuticals, has one among the largest and diverse collections of natural product extracts from microbes and plants from rare habitats in India and abroad.

It is also exploring rare microbes in the interior forests of the Amazon in Argentina, in association with Nappo Pharma of the US.

Recently, the Department of Biotechnology initiated a Rs 25-crore project for screening of biomolecules from microbial diversity collected from different ecological regions of the country. Nine national institutes and NPIL Research & Development (NRDL), an arm of NPIL, were part of the project.

PLSL, which was recently demerged from the parent Nicholas Piramal, is focused on new drug research in therapeutic areas of cancers, diabetes, inflammation and infectious diseases. The company has a pipeline of fourteen compounds, including four in clinical trials.