Panacea Biotec’s strategic collaboration with Osmotica Pharmaceuticals seems to have got the thumbs up from the stock market, with the scrip seeing a hike of almost 20 per cent on the BSE soon after the deal was announced. The move could be seen as an attempt of India’s second largest vaccine player to focus on the pharma side of its product portfolio. This seems to be a smart move from the balance sheet point of view, as the vaccines business is a volumes play and is largely a tender-driven business. The sector is made more vulnerable by the fact that organisations like WHO and UNICEF are in turn dependent on donors to fund their vaccine access programmes. Indeed, with the global economic crisis, many donor nations had to be prodded into meeting their commitments last year.
But in spite of this vulnerability, Serum Institute’s founder Cyrus Poonawala, India’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has decided to focus on vaccines. There have been recent reports on the company selling its stakes in past investments like the UK-based Lipoxen Plc (now Xenetic Biosciences, a company with a pipeline of protein drugs and vaccines) and US-based Akorn (which manufactures and markets sterile specialty pharmaceuticals). Speaking on the sidelines of the third edition of BIO India, Poonawala indicated that he is also waiting for an opportune time to exit from Orchid Chemicals even though he had once considered a possible acquisition of the company.
Poonawala also spoke about plans to use the recent acquisition of Netherland’s state-owned vaccine maker Bilthoven Biologicals as a manufacturing base for the EU markets. Inspite of the vulnerability of the vaccines sector, he says there’s a huge opportunity as well, provided players stick to cGMP norms and do not take short cuts, especially during the production ramp up process.
The biotech sector as a whole in India does have opportunities but leader speak at BIO India this year reflected the fact that regulations could make or break the sector. A joint statement released by the organisers after a biopharma regulatory and policy roundtable commends the draft biosimilar guidelines but cautions that such regulations need continued refinement over time.
The statement also urges that a first priority should be to streamline and rationalise the necessary clearances in order to eliminate unnecessary processing delays. It also hints that moves like compulsory licensing could impact the development of new, innovative biotech products for Indian consumers and makes a case for both incentives such as intellectual property rights to develop these needed products and a system for providing them to those who need them.
Clearly, the statement reflects the fact that we are drawing closer to a final verdict in the Novartis-Glivec case which is casting a shadow on the entire lifesciences sector. It will take the concerted efforts of industry as well as policy makers to find a middle path and convert the sector’s potential into reality.
Viveka Roychowdhury
Editor