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Contract research company Syngene is shifting focus from carrying out piecemeal research projects to integrated solutions.
The 18-year-old subsidiary of Biocon provides drug discovery and development services to life sciences companies. It provides services such as early discovery of drugs to toxicology studies, preclinical services and animal studies, along the value chain of discovering a product.
“More and more existing customers want us to support them in moving from component to cluster, and cluster to integrated approach. This means they are moving from low-value work to high-value work where interests are in moving from cheap labour arbitrage to productivity and innovation,” Mr Peter Bains, Director of Syngene International, told Business Line .
According to him, customers earlier used to ask Syngene to do work in narrow verticals, such as developing a formulation, carrying out toxicology studies or drug discovery. Nowadays, they are moving from a single component to cluster approach of doing a set of related services, and from a cluster approach to the entire spectrum of discovery to development of the products, Mr Bains pointed out.
‘Economies of scale'
The company, in association with healthcare company Abbott recently set up a research and development centre to work on this integrated approach and develop India-focused nutrition products. “Going forward, the company will have more such arrangements with large clients for larger economies of scale,” Ms Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman & Managing Director, Biocon Group said.
Syngene is moving into this model as it is “by definition more complex and of longer duration and it does not make sense to build a sophisticated R&D platform for just three months, but has to be a long-term commitment,” Mr Bains said, adding that also accelerates the development process and reduces investments for customers.
The company currently has over 1,500 scientists serving over 100 customers for companies across biotechnology, pharma, chemical and agrochemical segments. In the financial year 2012, the company grew 29 per cent with sales of Rs 418 crore.
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