Dr. Abhijit Barve, President – R&D, Biocon Ltd. shares how collaborations within the ecosystem can be leveraged to deliver better results
B&E: Could you cite some innovation ecosystem challenges which Biocon particularly faced during various drug discovery processes?
Dr. Abhijit Barve (AB): Biocon has a state of the art R&D centre, but yet we have faced challenges of not having every sophisticated instrument available that may be required for certain research experiments. In such cases, we have drawn from the external ecosystem and gone ahead with our quest for innovation & were able to tap into resources that were available in the Bangalore area. We have some world-class institutions in the city and we leveraged their services or partnered with them. For Indian companies like us, leveraging what is available in the country and developing competencies internally would be best. And Kiran has been very serious about forging partnerships with a variety of scientific leaders and institutions in the biotech field to place India on the global biotech map.
B&E: How can the stakeholders work towards building an ecosystem for biotech in India?
AB: It’s important to understand that the returns from innovation take a very long time. Even for biosimilars or novel molecules, the gestation period from the time you actually conceive an idea to commercial introduction is a long development cycle. It is a high risk and reward proposition requiring the right mindset supported by large investments. So, unless you have a huge risk appetite, you wouldn’t want to play in this area.
In the Indian biopharma and pharma industry, VCs and PEs don’t want to invest much because of many reasons. First, they perhaps don’t understand the field too well. Second, because they prefer investing in industries that offer secured returns with relatively low risks. Thirdly, there are limited investment opportunities in these sectors, so their basket of investments cannot be diversified and derisked across multiple technologies. Some VCs have invested in our domain. When there are a couple of success stories in terms of ROI, others will follow.
B&E: Could you cite some innovation ecosystem challenges which Biocon particularly faced during various drug discovery processes?
Dr. Abhijit Barve (AB): Biocon has a state of the art R&D centre, but yet we have faced challenges of not having every sophisticated instrument available that may be required for certain research experiments. In such cases, we have drawn from the external ecosystem and gone ahead with our quest for innovation & were able to tap into resources that were available in the Bangalore area. We have some world-class institutions in the city and we leveraged their services or partnered with them. For Indian companies like us, leveraging what is available in the country and developing competencies internally would be best. And Kiran has been very serious about forging partnerships with a variety of scientific leaders and institutions in the biotech field to place India on the global biotech map.
B&E: How can the stakeholders work towards building an ecosystem for biotech in India?
AB: It’s important to understand that the returns from innovation take a very long time. Even for biosimilars or novel molecules, the gestation period from the time you actually conceive an idea to commercial introduction is a long development cycle. It is a high risk and reward proposition requiring the right mindset supported by large investments. So, unless you have a huge risk appetite, you wouldn’t want to play in this area.
In the Indian biopharma and pharma industry, VCs and PEs don’t want to invest much because of many reasons. First, they perhaps don’t understand the field too well. Second, because they prefer investing in industries that offer secured returns with relatively low risks. Thirdly, there are limited investment opportunities in these sectors, so their basket of investments cannot be diversified and derisked across multiple technologies. Some VCs have invested in our domain. When there are a couple of success stories in terms of ROI, others will follow.
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