BANGALORE: The global biotechnology industry is moving towards strategic partnerships in a bid to create faster and cost-efficient means of drug discovery. The Indian advantage — demonstrated through high-quality scientific talent pool, lower operational costs, development speed and access to a large market — is drawing big firms to rapidly externalise their R&D.

Five years ago, big biotechnology firm collaborations in India were restricted to fee for service models and it is now evolving to those based on co-development. Take for instance, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s collaboration with Biocon, which has helped it to considerably reduce the time involved in delivering active pharmaceutical ingredients.

“Partnerships now range from discovery to early clinical development, which have significant upsides even for the partnering firms,” Dr CSN Murthy, Aurigene Discovery Technologies CEO, said on the second day of industry event Bangalore India Bio 2010.

Drugmaker AstraZeneca is another case. AstraZeneca is currently altering its R&D strategy by slimming down operations in the US and Europe and reinvesting it in Asia across India, China and Japan. “We have elevated our expectations on the externalisation of R&D to 40% of our products from 25%,” said Jit Patel, director-strategic planning, business & development at AstraZeneca R&D, USA.

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