Pharma companies increase investments in biotech segment

Biocon has invested $200 mn in an insulin manufacturing unit in Malaysia while Lupin and Wockhardt are increasing their investments to produce new insulins and biosimilars

Some of India’s bigger pharmaceutical companies are ramping up investment to grow their biotechnology business.

Biocon has invested $200 million in an insulin manufacturing unit in Malaysia. Lupin and Wockhardt are increasing their investments to produce  new insulins and biosimilars (officially approved versions of original ‘innovator’ products, which can be manufactured when the original product’s patent expires.

“Our plant in Malaysia is undergoing validation; we are yet to start commercial production. Each year, we are investing Rs 100-150 crore in India and our focus now is to file four biosimilar products for diabetes and oncology globally,” said Chief Executive Officer Arun Chandavarkar.

“We have two biosimilar products in India. We are co-developing a product for rheumatoid arthritis in partnership with a Japanese company and it is now under stage-III trials. We are making significant investments in the space and have a pipeline of 10 products,” said Cyrus Karkaria, president of Lupin’s biotech division.

“We sell insulins in India, Russia and Latin America, and now plan to make a foray in the US and other markets,” said M K Sahib, director, genomics and biotechnology, at Wockhardt.

Biosimilars are medicines made from living cells and differ from generic drugs which are chemical compounds. Increasingly, pharma companies are focusing on developing biosimilars to treat diabetes, cancer and other ailments. Dr Reddy’s Laboratories has a partnership with Merck and Biocon has tied up with Mylan to develop such products.