INDIA BUSINESS WORLD SEPTEMBER (1st - 15th) 2007
The Month that was ...
NICHOLAS PIRAMAL INDIA LIMITED TO INVEST RS 300 CR IN R&D UNIT
DOMESTIC pharma major Nicholas Piramal India (NPIL) has decided to invest some Rs 250-300 crore in the next two years in its recently demerged innovative R&D unit. The demerged company, which will be involved in new chemical entity (NCE) research, is yet to be christened. NPIL feels a sustained level of investment will enable the demerged company to commercialise its first major drug by 2010-11, company chairman Ajay G Piramal said.
Mr Piramal said NPIL's NCE research strategy includes acquisition of promising NCE compounds and to enter into research licensing deals with MNC pharma companies. "Several innovator MNC pharma companies have expressed interest to out-licence their NCEs to NPIL for pre-clinical and clinical development. We are evaluating them," he said.
NPIL had recently entered into such an R&D licensing deal with Eli Lilly to develop and commercialise a select group of Eli Lilly's pre-clinical drugs in multiple therapeutic areas. The potential milestone payment which NPIL can earn from this deal is $100 million.
NPIL's strategy to invest in the NCE research arm is primarily to support the clinical development costs associated with a new drug development. In fact, costs on clinical trials constitute about two-third of the total R&D cost of a new drug. NPIL's cumulative investment on NCE R&D between FY02 and FY07 is about Rs 340 crore. NPIL will also expand its NCE research pipeline. The company's pre-clinical and clinical NCE pipeline of 13 compounds has a global addressable market size of about $48.5 billion. Of the 13 drugs under development, four are in clinical trials.
"We have a target to add four new products in clinical trials by March 2008. The four new drugs will be in areas like anti-cancer, anti-inflammation, metabolic disorder and anti-infective. We expect to commercialise one of the eight NCEs under clinical trials in 2010-11," Mr Piramal said. However, he declined to comment on whether the company's leading anticancer NCE drug, P-276, is likely to be the first product to be commercialised by 2010-11.
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