Nicholas Piramal India Ltd (NPIL)

Business: R&D and marketing of biotech products

Biotech Revenue: Rs 16.60 crore

CEO: Ajay Piramal (Chairman)

Start-up Year: 1988

Address: Nicholas Piramal Tower, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai -400 013

Tel.: 91-22-3046 6666

Fax: 91-22-24908834

Website: www.nicholaspiramal.com

Nicholas Piramal India Ltd (NPIL), one of India's largest pharmaceutical companies keen on making its presence in biotechnology space, has generated sales of Rs 16.61 crore from the sale of biotech products in 2006-07 against last year's sales of Rs 13.65 crore, registering a marginal growth. The rise in the biotech sales was because of its inlicensing agreements with companies like Biogen IDEC and Genzyme Corporation. It also increased its diagnostic sales turnover to Rs 18 crore in 2006-07 against last year's sales of Rs 16.02 crore.

NPIL has made investments of 17 percent equity in Canadian biotech company Biosyntech, which has signed a scientific collaboration with NPIL. This collaboration will involve clinical studies for BST-InPod, which is being developed to alleviate the chronic pain associated with foot fat pads. The NPIL R&D product pipeline has expanded significantly with two of its phyto pharmaceutical molecules are in Phase II trials. Its lead oncology molecule P276-00 is in Phase II trials. It has signed an innovative drug development agreement with Eli Lilly, wherein Eli Lilly has given it a novel patented pre-clinical drug candidate for development in the metabolic disorder segment.

NPIL has set up a proteomics facility at its R&D facility, which can accommodate about 400 scientists. The facility will help to make use of revolutionary new technologies in mass spectrometry such as SELDI TOF and MALDI TOF. This new biomarker pattern approach leads to possible identification of new biomarkers further leading to identification of new drug targets. This is a biotech approach to discover new proteins used for making new drugs.