M S Mahadevan, the newly appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of BiOZEEN, a turnkey bioprocess engineering organisation, talks about his views on bioprocess engineering in an exclusive discussion with Sachin Jagdale
Tell us about your new role as the CEO of BiOZEEN. How have your responsibilities changed now?
There is a steady rise in the number of biopharmaceutical companies in India. This development will definitely benefit you. What kind of symbiotic relationship we can expect between BiOZEEN and other biopharma companies?
Though there has been a steady rise in the number of biopharmaceutical companies in India, however, I feel, we lack the skilled manpower on areas of biotherapeutics development and manufacturing. BiOZEEN is in a unique position delivering consultancy, training and process development, design and build equipment under one roof. I see BiOZEEN as an extended arm for biopharma companies from development, scale up and regulatory support for a given molecule.
Bioprocess engineering sector in developed nations must have an edge over their Indian counterparts, as far as advanced engineering and technology is concerned. This may be due to the well developed biopharma sector over there. Do you deal with overseas bioprocess engineering firms in order to bring latest and best developments to India?
We are in dialogues with leading global bioprocess engineering firms for strategic alliances where we complement each other to bring the respective skill sets to our customers. BiOZEEN already has high level of collaboration with our customers in South Korea, South Africa, Brazil etc., where we are executing joint projects in the field of vaccines and biologics.
What are the current challenges for Indian bioprocess engineering service providers?
The challenge I see for Indian bioprocess engineering providers is the missing multinational tag while we have the highest level of skills set and global regulatory understanding.
Who are your clients in India and overseas?
BiOZEEN has multi-level partnerships and association with our customers. Some of the Indian customers include Serum Institute, Dr Reddy’s, Reliance Life Science, Shantha Biotechnics, Biological E and Intervet. We also have major installations and projects such as those with LG Life Sciences, Binex of South Korea, Biovac in South Africa, GPO Thailand, UPM Malaysia and DAPH Sri Lanka.
What is the major difference in serving Indian biopharma company and biopharma MNCs?
Indian companies tend to focus on the domestic market initially and then move towards more regulatory markets later. So their fixed cost investments tend to be less. Outside India, there is an emphasis to meet all stringent regulatory norms at the first instance. So their investments tend to be towards the higher side. There is a marked difference from an investment perspective between Indian companies and MNCs.
What future developments do you foresee in the field of bioprocess engineering?
From BiOZEEN’s perspective, we expect more integration towards bioprocess and sterile engineering. Process compression with integrated design, flexibility in scale of operation coupled by hybrid concept with single use are expected to play a major role addressing titres and scale of operations.
What revenue targets have been set by you for BiOZEEN for the next two to three years and what will be the possible strategies to achieve them?
I expect to double the current turnover of BiOZEEN in the next two years. We are increasing our focus on individual business units and bring innovative business models to support our growth strategy. The investments in our bioprocess pilot lab and state-of-the-art manufacturing centre would bring in our unique areas of added strength to our biopharma customers.