Rank 7

Enhancing therapies

BD is not only working to improve access to tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS monitoring in India, but has also come up with breakthrough technology for stem cell research.

Becton Dickinson (BD) operates in India through a wholly-owned subsidiary, BD India Pvt Ltd. BD is focused on improving drug therapy, enhancing the quality and speed of diagnosing infectious diseases, and advancing research and discovery of new drugs and vaccines. BD operations consist of three key segments--BD Medical, BD Diagnostics and BD Biosciences. BD's biosciences segment is focused on providing integrated systems, products and services for a variety of applications in life sciences. Some of its major products include flow cytometry systems for cell analysis, monoclonal antibodies for biomedical research, molecular biology reagents for the study of genes, cell growth and screening products and labware products.

BD India recorded Rs 178.63 crore in revenues from the life sciences business in FY 2007-08, recording a growth of approximately 34 percent over the previous year's revenues of Rs 133 crore. Almost 50 percent of its total revenues come for the cell analysis products. The company's range of instrumentation products--FACSCanto II and FACSAria II--launched last year has contributed significantly to its sales. While FACSCanto II deals in multicolor analysis flowcytometry technology where scientists can get more information per cell per experiment, FACSAria II System with solid state UV laser aids studies on stem cell therapy and sorting. Its Gentest product range, which enables biotech companies to do ADMETox studies on new and old molecules, with new process aiding in their drug discovery process, has also been well received in the market. The product is targeted at the CROs and pharma R&D and is growing by 100 percent every year.

Recently BD acquired US-based Cytopia, which deals in a product called Influx that finds its application in experimental stem cell therapy, a new concept in the field of stem cell research. BD plans to launch the product soon.

It has been a good year for BD's standing on the corporate social responsibility front too. It was recently recognized by the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC) for its efforts to improve access to tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic equipment in developing countries. The GBC is a coalition of more than 220 companies united to keep the fight against HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria a global priority.

The company is also setting up a center of excellence for flowcytometry in collaboration with National Center for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, that will help provide training and support to scientists. It is also plans to launch a product called CD4 percentage later this year for AIDS monitoring. The company has been at the forefront of conducting GLP programs in the country, covering 73 sites and has also won the TERI corporate award for the same recently.