Friday, May 9, 2014

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




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!

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The mantra is……………..Innovation!



I believe there would be a general agreement on the fact that companies in today’s world need to innovate to survive. However, the conundrum is how much of the company’s revenue (small/medium enterprises) or initial funds (as for start-ups) be focused on the research activity? 

Let us take examples of two types of business models (we would only consider biotech/life science industry). First is the ‘service’ model where the companies provide technological services for fee. These might range from providing protein purification services to next generation sequencing. The companies rely on their expertise and promote their cause by trying to give the best services. Since many of the companies utilize an already known technology they focus on giving their clients the best technological support and in due course would expect good ‘word of mouth’ publicity for the company to promote its services. The better companies which survive for the longest duration however are also focused on improving the ‘in –use’ technologies to sharpen their service portfolio. This is crucial as the subtle improvements can bring in new clients and can also cater better to the existing client base. One general question can be since these companies utilize instruments or reagents from established players (Illumina, Agilent etc.) why should the service provider invest money to innovate? Surely the instrument manufacturers are doing their bit and the service providers can acquire the technology from them! So why not completely focus on marketing and spend little on ‘in-house’ research? Well, research does not always mean big ticket breakthroughs! Even subtle changes for example, in the protocol of a particular assay can bring in great benefits both in terms of economic advantage as well as technological advancement. Second is that newer methods can provide a valuable feedback to the instrument manufacturers and therefore the possibility of partnership increases. This gives a huge fillip to the ‘brand value’ of the service provider. Hence one cannot completely shut innovation even in service based business models. 
                                   Image courtesy - The creative Scientist




Let us now look at the ‘product’ based business model (again in the realms of life science industry). I guess there is no denying the fact that for product based life science organizations ranging from companies delivering ‘bioinformatics suite’ to companies selling enzymes, innovation has to take the primary seat. Newer and better products are the keys to survival!

But having known these facts how many SMEs (Small medium enterprises) really focus on innovation? Many companies think that money spent on R&D is not worth it especially in the life science sector as there is a long incubation period and higher failure rates. But then investing in research is like buying insurance. Not only the companies need to invest but invest in the right idea and people to continue surviving in this fast paced era!

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Synthetic Biomarkers – a new buzz word in the area of modern diagnostics



Biomarkers are the Holy Grail for detecting diseases. Natural biomarkers are sought after molecules for effective screening of patients. Biomarkers include detection of proteins, RNA, DNA to now even micro RNAs. However, detection of natural biomarkers is fraught with issues of specificity, feasibility , price etc.

Now, a new set of research is employing the idea of nano-particles conjugated peptides. Since many disease states are characterized by dysregulated protease activity, the synthetic probe acts by stimulating this response thereby releasing the peptides that can be non-invasively detected. The nanoparticle is introduced and allowed to accumulate in diseased tissue where it is cleaved by the overactive proteases. This cleavage releases the peptides into the host’s urine, where it can be detected using either simple ELISA or mass spectrometry. Synthetic biomarkers provide the flexibility, ease and specificity that a modern day diagnostic lab would demand. In fact, promising results have already been observed to monitor liver fibrosis and detect early stage cancer. This noninvasive urinary monitoring could prove applicable to many diseases that feature protease dysregulation, including cancer, atherosclerosis, inflammation, and Alzheimer’s disease and may also detect many of these diseases much earlier than the traditional biomarkers.

  Image - ACS Nano, 2013, 7 (10), pp 9001–9009

The recent news of a paper based assay to detect cancer (colorectal at this point of time) and thrombosis is a very important step in the direction of non-invasive ‘synthetic biomarker’ based diagnostics. This is even more significant for poor countries where population cannot afford high cost diagnostics that might not even be accurate enough for the cost of the assay. Therefore, I believe the field of nano-particles and synthetic biomarkers can be given more encouragement not only from the Government but also from the various aid agencies to improve upon the technology and help bring the products to the market much faster.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The ‘emotional’ connect in modern management



‘People’ are the main asset for any company or institution, more so for the research and innovation based organizations. Companies which are known to put ‘employees’ in the fore front are found to be more productive, positive and in the long term provide value to not only to its share holders but also to the society in general. 

Two Indian corporate giants HCL Tech and the Tata group are known to have great employee friendly outlook. HCL technologies, the IT sector major, surprised the world when it announced the policy of ‘employee first, customer second’ slogan. The idea is that a happy and may I add a satisfied employee can add more value to the organization than a de-motivated one. I strongly believe, if an employee is made a stake holder in the company’s decision and path it takes or envisions, then it brings the employee much closer to the organizational DNA and its values. 

People have slowly started to realize the power of the ‘emotional quotient’ in managing an institution. Humans are not robots so to expect productivity of a robot from a human is not only undesirable but absurd. Long working hours, expectation of taking work to home, working hard even on weekends may bring good returns in short term but these practices eventually bring about high ‘burn-out’ rates in employees and eventually organizations take a beating in the long run! 

Talented employees always do not work for monetary benefits only. They also look at the way the organization treats its employees. In today’s world of high attrition, many organizations overlook this aspect and focus on other factually incorrect reasons to address this issue. 

This empathetic approach is very important for research driven organizations. Research is a 24X7, 365 days a year affair and requires huge commitment from the scientists. To top it, a high percentage of failed experiments, tougher deadlines and lower employability options burden the researchers. Therefore, to improve productivity, it is important for the managers to harness the‘emotional quotient’ much more and come out with radical shift in the outlook of 'people management'!

Thursday, January 2, 2014

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.