TCG Lifesciences to Foray into Bio-tech Medicine

Friday, 17 February 2012, 18:12 IST
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Kolkata: Kolkata-based contract research company TCG Lifesciences will foray into the field of bio-tech medicine in the next two years, a top company official said Thursday.

"We are a chemistry based drug research company but we plan to venture in the filed of bio-tech medicines in the two years. The bio-tech segment is an emerging market which has been witnessing explosive growth," company managing director Swapan Bhattacharya said here.

"Most of the drug companies are mainly focused in the field of chemistry based medicines, but we think bio-tech is a challenging sector and we are preparing ourselves to enter it," he said.

The company which provides contract research services along with clinical research and laboratory informatics also announced the nomination of a pre-clinical development candidate (candidate) under a R&D collaboration it entered with pharma giant Pfizer Inc. in 2009.

"The candidate is a small molecule new chemical entity developed by us. We have now handed over it to Pfizer which undertake the further research in developing the new molecule into a drug," Bhattacharya said about the 'candidate'.

The new molecule has been developed by a team of 40 scientists in two years. The new component has been tested on animals by the company and has '15 percent of probability to become a drug'.

"Discovery of a new drug can be said to be almost an impossible job. Millions of molecules and compounds are tested before selecting one final molecule which is the candidate. The probability of a candidate becoming a new medicine is very low and requires extensive research. The average cost research incurred on a successful drug is anything between $1.5 million to $2 million," added Bhattacharya.

The company also ruled out floating initial public offering (IPO) in the next few years saying they will go for it only 'when the time is right'.

Promoted by Purnendu Chatterjee and TCG Lifesciences Mauritius Limited with operations in the UK and the US and India, it had in 2007 filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to enter the capital market with its initial public offering of equity shares.

But later it had backed out citing poor market conditions.
 


Source: IANS