Bangalore has an answer to Bacteria!

While there are well documented stories about IT and Biotech innovations happening in Bangalore, here is one not so well known discovery. GangaGen Biotechnologies recently received two US patents for its Bacteriophage technologies. This city based biotech company focused on the development of bacteriophage-based products for prevention and treatment of bacterial infections. Bacteriophage is a virus which was first found in the waters of river Ganga, has the ability of infecting bacteria and killing them.

One might remember an old belief that river Ganga is self-cleansing and also cleans our sins. There is a scientific fact to back it up; in 1896 a British scientist M.E. Hankin noted that the river water contains bacteriophages which kill cholera bacteria. Inspired by this fact, Dr.J.Ramachandran of GangaGen took up research on bacteriophages in 2001, but faced two major issues.

The bacteriophage enters and reproduces rapidly inside the bacteria and comes out in large numbers, scattering bacterial toxins inside the human body. GangaGen scientists knocked out the phage gene that codes for the Lysin enzyme responsible for breaking down the bacterial wall and produced a Lysin-deficient bacteriophage that kills the bacterial host, but remains inside the dead bacterium.

Dr Ramachandran has already demonstrated the efficacy of its first commercial product to control E.Coli bacteria in cattle which is awaiting regulatory approval. He said phage therapies would have immense revenue potential since they are the only firm working on non-antibiotic drugs. Over the years, bacteria have developed enormous resistance to known antibiotic drugs. In the next five years, the company pegged its revenue from human food safety applications at $50 million and animal therapies at $10 million. GangaGen is right now working with Lallemand, a major animal feed distributor in Europe, to develop bacteriophage products to control Salmonella infections in poultry and pigs.
details: http://gangagen.com/corporateframe.htm

Where is the boom?

Yet another Bangalore Bio expo happened in city and all the concerned dignitaries painted rosy pictures about the growth prospects in the biotech sector. The Queen bee of biotech, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD of Biocon expected the revenues of this sector to go up from the current $1 billion to $5 billion by 2010. Another 46 new firms have come into the city taking the total number of companies to 177 in the state. The CM Dharam Singh said that the work on Bangalore Helix Biotech Park will soon commence and the central government has already sanctioned Rs.14.45 crore for the project.

This was enough for our beloved scribes to gung-ho about the sector announcing new firms are coming and more jobs are being created. But if you look at the sector which takes only post-graduates and PhDs as researchers, till now we find only 20,000 people being employed, while the freshers are roaming around in the expo trying to push their resumes.

If we look at statistics, a CII-Rabobank India Joint Report of 2003 stated that the market for biotechnology products in India is estimated to be about $150 million (Rs 750 crore) in 2002 and it is estimated to grow 10-fold to $1.5 billion (Rs 7,500 crore) and to $4.5 billion by 2010. this is quite contrary to what our Queen bee said which translates to Rs 4,500 crore at present! One look at the annual report of Biocon which dominates the market gives you the clear picture. Biocon Group’s FY 2005 revenue crosses Rs.700 crores, so can anyone enlighten us where is the rest Rs.3,800 crore coming from…