A shot in the arm for the Indian Drug discovery/Innovation ecosystem

The recent announcement of collaboration in the field of type 2 diabetes between Boehringer Ingelheim and Connexios LifeSciences, a Bangalore based drug discovery company is good news for the entire Indian ‘innovation’ ecosystem especially in the field of life sciences.

First, to the credit of the investors of Connexios (Nadathur Holdings and Investments), they invested in an idea and held on to it for a decade or so knowing well the pitfalls of such a ‘high risk high gain’ business model and at a time when such type of investments were unheard of in India . In India, unlike the West, we do not see many University spin offs working to bring breakthrough concepts/technology from the ‘bench to the bedside’ so in that aspect Connexios Life Sciences took a bold step to focus on System/Network biology approach to find novel targets and newer ‘first in class’ molecules. Another aspect that is interesting in this is that the company focused all its energies and expertise on type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Drug discovery is a costly and long drawn affair so focusing on one disease model was a good decision which led to concentrated efforts by the team. This also means that the company has more than one option in terms of novel targets and new small molecules to focus on the disease. So if one program fails, there would be a back up of other targets and small molecule entities (SMEs) giving credibility to the company.

The success of Connexios therefore gives a huge fillip to the ‘research based’ organizations. In India, very few companies focus on impactful research especially in the life science/biotech arena. As India is known as ‘the pharmacy of the world’, hence, most of the pharma companies devote their research activities on the development of generics (formulation, synthesis etc.) with very little emphasis on discovery of newer molecules or targets. This leaves a huge gap in the Indian innovation ecosystem. The news of the collaboration between Connexios and BI should also provide impetus to investors to believe in this type of Business model with more conviction than before. 

There is no denying fact, that India can become a major Innovation hub as it has a huge ‘talent’ pool of high skilled scientists who work at a fraction of cost as compared to the their western counterparts. The time has come to give more credit to our scientists and a better conducive research atmosphere with more investments in this sector so that we have more successful Connexios type stories in the future!

The hub and spoke model – from aviation to pharma

Every idea has its place under the sun. Two industries, pharmaceuticals and aviation which are known to be ‘high risk – high gain’ business are strikingly employing similar practices in order to maximize productivity and profits.

Everyone would agree that both aviation and pharmaceutical businesses require ‘deep pockets’ to start and sustain. Both have long periods of gestation but if run properly then returns can be huge eg. Pfizer, Merck, Emirates etc. 

Let us look at the paradigm shift being brought about by the major aviation companies and pharma giants to improve sustainability of their respective businesses.  In aviation, big players like Etihad, Emirates, Singapore airlines utilize their home base airports of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Singapore respectively as hubs which then is used to improve/increase traffic. Traffic is brought in from various airports around the world and the hubs provide seamless connectivity options to their respective customers – a typical hub and spoke model!

Similar kind of approach is now being utilized by the pharma giants to increase their R&D productivity. R&D is the base on which any pharma company stands. But with increasing drought of blockbuster drugs coming out from the stable of Merck, Pfizer et al., it has become imperative for them to look for other ‘innovative’ means. The answer- ‘reduce expenditure on internal R&D efforts and create smaller hubs to scout for interesting research done in smaller companies/universities’. The companies feel this would help them to maximize R&D productivity and will be better focused on bringing in a stream of new deals. This is another version of ‘hub and spoke model’. 

There are critics of this approach but with increasing cost burden, lack of nimbleness in the big pharma set up it is probably important to decentralize and open up.

Reliable research – Where are we going wrong?

Like any field and probably contrary to beliefs, life in research is very frustrating. The chances of success are minimal. The scientists not only need to worry about the failed experiments but also worry about the peer pressure, the rat race to publish and publish for the sake of getting new grants and also continuance of the old grants. After all a scientist is worth how much grants he has or how many publications he has.

But in doing all this, we as scientific community are doing a great disservice to the field of science. Many of the published articles are either not genuine or are not reproducible. The beauty of research is that an observation in one part of the world can and should be faithfully reproduced anywhere else provided the reagents are of the same quality and of course the experiments are repeated as were done in the original research. However, still, most of the research goes the non-reproducible way!!! Now this is a big blot on the credibility of the scientific research community. The basic research is the template on which newer medicines would be based. And one recent article in Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328) highlights the pitfalls of such a alarming scenario.

There needs to be a mechanism that would and should delink a scientists’ credibility from the number of research articles published otherwise this problem can take a serious turn for the worse!!!!

Indian Pharma - Generic all the way and innovation out of the way?

India is poising itself to be the new Knowledge superpower. An economy which is dubbed as a knowledge economy with huge asset of English speaking educated people who can take India to the top. However, why is it then that we do not hear or read about any “new” path-breaking drug development from India? We have an estimated close to 20,000 pharma companies employing the “best” scientists/researchers/chemists etc.  In fact last few years have seen a “reverse brain drain” giving India back its lost scientists and researchers. So what pulls us back from innovating?

Well, there are many reasons behind it. But one of the most important reasons is the focus on generics rather than “innovative” research in the Indian pharma industry. It is easy for a pharma company to achieve a better return of investment with very little risk if they invest in generics. Big names like Ranbaxy labs which were into some good “research” completely re-focused themselves into generics business. Most big companies in India spend a penny on innovative research as compared to their western counterparts. This trend, though profitable for pharma may be disastrous for them in the long run and also for the country.

Drug discovery is a 'high risk and high return' business. But most small and medium level pharma being run by business families probably do not understand the importance of innovation. For most, it is how much do they get in return and how fast?!!!! I know of instances when reputed pharma companies recruiting scientists would ask questions like “can you develop XYZ in one year?” or “what do we gain from your academic experience, would it help us get our investment back?”  Questions like these not only show the hollowness of approach but also affect the morale of budding scientists as they also start to think everything in terms of investment and returns without actually thinking about innovation.  I am not in the favor of giving a lifetime deadline or a free run to scientists as well (as happens in most of our Government labs) but want to see a rational approach.

Moreover, unfortunately, we do not yet have the “Venture capital” mindset in drug discovery. Indian Venture capitalists are gung ho about investing in IT but see black when approached for investment in life sciences!!! There are few Indian companies that are trying to change that but they are constantly under undue pressure from their investors, who would have seen other IT start ups booming by the time a biotech/pharma drug discovery start up barely starts walking!!!!!!

In conclusion, penny wise pound foolish approach of Indian pharma industry would be detrimental for the overall growth of this sector in the long run if the mindset and approach is not overhauled!  

Research in Pharma and Government labs - a short sighted approach and greed

Is lifelong chronic therapy for diabetes or other metabolic disorders bane or boon? Well, it depends on which side you are on. For big pharma it is a boon but for patients I would say it is not so good an omen. That brings me to a fundamental question. Are big pharma companies deliberately not being able to find “cure” for such diseases?  Modern science has evolved a lot especially during the last few decades. We are at the realm of finding evidence for dark matter or other theoretical subatomic particles but  we are still far from understanding the how a normal cell functions! There are still some unexplored territory as far as understanding the working of a cell is concerned; forget about human disease or disorders.  So it is not a co-incidence that modern science has yet to provide “cure” for most of the diseases although we have been on the winning side in taking head on some infectious diseases (thanks to antibiotics)!

So, what is the way out? Well, the answer is not that simple. We ought to give rightful importance to basic and applied research equally.  But here comes the negative part. Research means lot of money and it is foolish to leave all basic research on Governments’ shoulders. The Big pharma ought to put in more money into research. I know of many instances where in big pharma companies have good and interesting data generated, but they do not divulge that fearing competition or deem the information useless in terms of financial benefit. Ultimately, this leads to lot of repetitive research and that means lot of money! So ultimately it is the loss to the public. Also, recently many pharma companies have moved out of  research in some disease areas  and that leads to a lot of void; a negative approach of pharma on research in new antibiotics is just a point in case.

Even Government funded labs are poor in their approach towards research. Lot of public money is wasted in the name of basic research.  I think time has come to delve deeper into our conscience as scientists/policy makers in government and in the private sector. Let us work in a collaborative way to understand disease and disorders , otherwise we would have no one but our ‘greed’ to blame