face to face
“Indian biotech industry
has matured to reach the
levels of competitive edge”
In an exclusive intercation with the BioVoice News, India’s eminent
scientist and former top health adminsitrator, Dr N K Ganguly, shared
his views on the growth achieved by the biotech industry, academia
and criticism over research funding in India. Read the excerpts below:
BY RAHUL KOUL
How do you look at
the progress made
by the biotech
industry in India
so far? What do
you consider its
achievements and
challenges?
Indian biotech
industry has made
remarkable progress.
Among its various
areas, the biosimilars
in itself has emerged
as a sector followed
by the biotherapeutics
and vaccines. Yet the
biosimilars industry
got stagnated at one
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BioVoiceNews | September 2017
time as we hadn’t gone
to the third generation
products or what
were called difficult
products.
One of the
breakthroughs
came when Genova
Phamacueticals made
the TNK-tPA which
was global product and
to make its replication,
one required special
process where
Tenecteplase which is
an enzyme was used
as a thrombolytic
drug. That created a
landmark product.
Then there was quality
erythropoetin product,
Vintor from the
company. India has a
major share of this in
the overall market.
The second major
product was from
our current Director
General of Council
of Scientific and
Industrial Research
(DG-CSIR), Girish
Sahney who created
India’s first idigenous
clot buster drug that
was very specifc or
highly targeted. It was
later branded by the