In India, drug research mainly focuses on developing new drugs, developing economic alternatives, and finding new uses for existing drugs. Success in any of the three areas is of importance since it adds to the therapeutic armamentarium at the hand of doctors to treat patients.
New Delhi, Nov 7 () Biocon on Saturday said its subsidiary Biocon Biologics has approved a Rs 1,125 crore investment from Goldman Sachs.
For India, the inclusion of new cancer therapies gain significance as data suggest that India loses 7,00,000 lives to cancer every year. Companies such as Biocon, Dr Reddy's, Cadila Healthcare and Reliance Lifesciences are some that are actively focusing on the biosimilars market.
The trastuzumab drug has shown "high efficacy" in curing early stage breast cancer and in some cases more advanced forms of the disease, the WHO said in a statement.
The Bengaluru-headquartered biotech firm is planning to provide rh-insulin to middle- and lowincome countries at less than 10 cents a day.
In the three day conference starting from November 22-24, the benefits of the biosimilar drugs were widely discussed by medical oncologists, pharma researchers.
Biocon Ltd kicked off a recast by housing biologic assets in Biocon Biologics UK in 2016. That was followed by its first-ever approval to sell the biosimilar version of mega cancer drug Trastuzumab in the US through partner Mylan.
The complex biological medicines, called antibody drug conjugates, have been in development for decades, and are now generating renewed excitement because of the success of one ADC in late-stage testing, a breast cancer treatment called DS-8201.
The treatment Trastuzumab Deruxtecan, or DS-8201, demonstrated a clinically meaningful response in patients with refractory HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, the two companies said in a joint statement.
With the Intas launch, the cost of treatment may reduce substantially for a breast cancer patient to Rs 4 lakh from over Rs 10 lakh.
Roche first-half sales rose 7 percent in constant currencies, topping the 5 percent rise Novartis reported last week. Its shares were 3 percent up by 0710 GMT, outperforming Novartis' 0.3 percent rise.
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