|
Singapore: Lilly Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery, part of the $20-billion (FY2008 sales) Eli Lilly and Company, has said it could look at both India and China to partner with contract research organisations (CROs) in its efforts to discover new drugs in areas of cancer and metabolic disorders.
The Centre, which is working with three Indian CROs under a confidentiality agreement, said it is finding its collaborations with these firms "successful" and of world-class standards, but would still base its new pharmaceutical research work centrally from Singapore owing to the country's ability to attract high skills in biological research and bioinformatics.
Jonathon D Sedgwick, managing director and chief scientific officer of the Lilly Singapore Centre, said the firm is collaborating with CROs, especially for its work in the biomarkers space. Biomarker discovery and patient tailoring approaches are conducted at the Centre to identify the right drug for the right patient, resulting in improved patient outcomes. "We are not planning any immediate partnership apart from the three CROs in India, but we will look at India and China in future. We are focused on cancer biomarker discovery, drug discovery in areas of cancer and diabetes and integrative computational sciences," he said.
A key area for drug discovery efforts at Centre is the development of therapeutics that modulate epigenetic drug targets. "Epigenetic targets form a novel, very promising and exciting class of targets involved in gene-regulation mechanisms underlying diseases such as cancer and diabetes," he added.
As per a CII-KPMG study, the Indian contract research and manufacturing market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 41.7% to touch $2.46 billion by 2010. This is driven by a large pool of skilled manpower and investments made by Indian companies in setting up USFDA-approved plants.
Lilly's Singapore Centre is located in Biopolis, an international biomedical cluster. Other companies that form part of the cluster include Novartis, Takeda, GSK and CordLife. More than 50 biomedical companies are carrying out R&D activities that include drug discovery, translational and clinical research and medical innovation in Singapore.
Lilly, whose major products include Adcirca (tadalafil) for pulmonary arterial hypertension, Byetta (exenatide) for type 2 diabetes and Cymbalta (duloxetine) for major depressive disorder, had, in 2008, seen sales of over $1 billion each for eight of its products. The company has R&D facilities in eight countries and manufacturing plants in 13. It spent...
More from Front Page
| Single Page Format | 1 - 2 - Next |
Discuss this story on expressindia forums
|
|
 |
 |
 |
About Us | Contact Us | Advertisers | Site Map | Make us your homepage | Work for Us | RSS | Subscribe | Electronic Edition | Privacy Policy© 2010: The Indian Express Limited. All rights reserved throughout the world
