Nurturing Good Health

Started in 1953, Biological E is one of the first companies in India to make critical healthcare products such as preventive immunologicals accessible to common man. It has a strong presence in sera and vaccines, oncologicals, bulk drugs, formulations and herbal products. Biological E, a key player in anti-TB drugs, has been associated with the National Immunization Program for the last 30 years by supplying DPT and TT vaccines.

Biological E celebrated its golden jubilee last year. It has an illustrious history of many foreign collaborations starting from Evans of UK to the Pasteur Meriux Connaught of France & Solvay & Cie of Belgium. It was the first company to bring the Korean Red ginseng to India, an elixir that promotes good health. It was the first company to introduce life-saving anticoagulants in India. Apart from domestic retail marketing, it supplies most of the essential and life saving drugs to various government hospitals, public sector undertakings and to the Indian armed forces.

The International division of Biological E provides high quality innovative products to cater to the health and well being of people worldwide. Currently it is negotiating with few companies in Nepal to sell DPT and TT vaccines. And it is in the process of supplying its products to Philippines. Besides, it is looking at entering the promising economies such as Central and Latin America, Africa, West Asia and South-East Asia.

Focussing on the areas of bacterial vaccines and recombinant therapeutics, it has technical collaborations with IMTECH, Chandigarh and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The company has also forayed into DNA microarray technology. In this regard, it has invested about five percent of its total sales on R&D, infrastructure and human resources in 2003-04 and continues to invest the same amount during the current financial year.

The company is setting up a new R&D campus at the Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech park at Shamirpet near Hyderabad at an investment of Rs 95 crore spread over 50 acres so as to focus more on the vaccine front. The new facility is being set up as per WHO/cGMP standards and then the firm would be in a position to supply its vaccines to international institutional purchasers such as UNICEF and PAHO. The new R&D center will be operation by the end of this year. It will utilize the new facility to cater to the export market, while use the existing facility at Gaganpahad to meet the local demand. Biological E is expected to launch new vaccines like Hib for influenza, which it has developed in association with NIV, a government institute in Netherlands. The vaccine is currently in pre-clinical trials and will be ready for launch in mid-2005.

With a strong team of 262, the total sales of the company have increased to Rs 80.26 crore (includes Rs 19.13 crore from vaccines, Rs 1.8 crore from antibiotics, Rs 17.45 crore biochemicals) in 2003-04 from Rs 65.63 crore (Rs17.06 crore from vaccines and biochemicals) in the previous year. To reach its set target of Rs 90.00 crore in 2004-05 it is planning to increase its work force to 378.