With competition getting hotter in the generic drugs space, Indian companies are increasingly focusing on research and development to bring out novel drugs.
With competition getting hotter in the generic drugs space, Indian companies are increasingly focusing on research and development to bring out novel drugs, or new chemical entities (NCEs).
However, two diseases that have been somewhat neglected by pharma majors in terms of discovery and development of new molecules are Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia, both of which hold huge potential for growth.
Alzheimer’s, which is characterised by memory loss, impaired judgment and loss of language skills, is one of the most common degenerative disorders and poses the biggest unmet medical need in neurology, affecting 26 million people globally. By 2050, this figure is expected to quadruple. The market for Alzheimer’s drugs, which was at $3 billion in 2006, is expected to exceed $5 billion by 2012. As for schizophrenia, estimates peg its market potential at $3.8 billion by 2010.
This is what the Rs 120-crore Suven Life Sciences, a Hyderabad-based contract research firm, is betting big on. The minnow has a pipeline of 13 NCEs, of which six are for Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia. Suven is perhaps the only Indian company that has molecules for these two central nervous system disorders. Globally, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Wyeth, Roche, and Eli Lilly are some multinational players with molecules for Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia.
Venkat Jasti, vice chairman and chief executive officer, Suven, said competition in the two disorders isn’t very high, at least in India, and so they are promising areas. “For a small company like ours, there’s no point in doing research in areas that have several players.”
One NCE for Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia will enter phase II in June-July. Sometime this calendar year, two of its other NCEs will enter clinical trials, wherein the molecules will be tested on humans. The remaining NCEs are in the research and preclinical stages.
Should the molecules for the two disorders succeed, Suven stands to reap huge gains as competition is limited, say analysts. Bhavin Shah, an analyst from Dolat Capital Research, said, “At present, Suven’s contract research business is funding its NCE business. The market for Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia is huge in developed economies such as the US and the EU and thus holds good chances of success.”
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