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| Edited By: Priyanka Gollikeri |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 19, 2018, 02:18 AM IST
French drugmaker Sanofi is eyeing alliances and partnerships in India for its research and development (R&D) activities.
Raman Govindarajan, head, India R&D and member of Asia Pacific R&D management, said the company will look for collaboration in areas such as diabetes and oral cancer. “We are looking for partners who are interested and can bring something to the table. The partners could be anyone from pharma and biotech firms to academic institutes, consultancies, etc.”
In May 2011, Sanofi had inked a deal worth $613 million with Glenmark Pharma, whereby the former in-licensed a molecule for Crohn’s disease and inflammatory conditions initially developed by the latter for further development and commercialisation.
Govindarajan said the firm will look for such in-licensing agreements in future.
“Such in-licensing alliances can happen at any stage, say at the pre-clinical stage, or even when the molecule is in Phase I or II.”
Sanofi will primarily engage in funding and monitoring the R&D activities.
“Our job will be to find a partner, write out a plan, get funding, monitor the work and get the results,” said Govindarajan.
The €30 billion (`2.15 lakh crore) firm, which shortened its name from Sanofi Aventis to Sanofi in 2011, invests about €4.6 billion in research and development globally.
In India it will mainly look at niche segments having higher prevalence in the India-South Asia region for its R&D activities. So apart from oral cancer and diabetes, segments like cervical cancer, stomach and colon cancer and gall bladder cancer will be key areas, said Govindarajan.
“Gall bladder cancer is seen more among the North Eastern population in India than in say Western countries. We will work on diseases which have a pressing requirement here.”
Experts said MNC drugmakers will collaborate more with Indian firms on R&D activities due to their drying pipelines.
Ajit Mahadevan, partner, Ernst & Young, said more agreements and licensing deals will happen between multinational firms and Indian drugmakers engaged in some sort of innovative work related to new chemical entities and novel drug delivery systems.
