Technology edge
Molecular Connections aims to lower drug development costs. Its expertise lies primarily in the asthma, cardiovascular and diabetes segments.
As a rank holding chartered accountant, cost accountant and management grad, you’d assume Jignesh Bhate would be working in or heading the finance department of a company. Once a highly-rated pharma equities analyst, Bhate instead opted to broaden his horizons and graduate from commenting on the pharma and lifesciences industry to actually running a company in the same market. He tied up with Limsoon Wong at Singapore’s Institute for Infocomm Research and domestic pharma major Dr Reddy’s to set up a bioinformatics firm. He started off in Singapore in 2001, but quickly realised talent was in acute short supply in the city-state and moved to Bangalore toscale up his business.
Back in 2001, when he first came to Bangalore and India, his start-up, Molecular Connections, was a four-person outfit, working out of a conference room-sized office; even till three years ago it was a relatively small, 25-person outfit. However, over the last three years, Molecular Connections, with its headquarters in conservative Basavanagudi, in south Bangalore, has become a 250-person outfit, with four products under its belt, and funding from Barings Private Equity.
According to Bhate, Molecular Connections focuses on two parts of the drug discovery value chain: Target identification and validation. Its expertise lies primarily in the asthma, cardiovascular and diabetes segments. “It costs around $800 million to develop a single molecule and the attrition rate using conventional in vivo (in the body) techniques is high. We want to use technology to reduce the cost of developing new drugs and speed up the process, too,” says Bhate.
Indeed, bioinformatics is just making a comeback into the limelight after a period of consolidation three-four years ago. “Many players thought that informatics was the holy grail of drug development, while in reality it was and is an enabler of the overall process of drug development,” argues Bhate.
As a result of this over-optimistic view, several large companies including the likes of Pfizer reduced their investments a few years ago and are just beginning to re-invest in this market now.
Besides providing these services to large pharma companies (Bhate claims he has identified 100 target molecules for asthma for a German customer), Molecular Connections has also built a portfolio of database products to bolster its margins and earn more steady revenues. “We probably have the world’s largest database of protein-protein interactions and biomarkers,” boasts Bhate. According to some estimates, there are some 70 million papers in PubMed, a popular pharma data repository, and this is increasing around 20 per cent every year. “We want to provide structured, organised access to researchers,” says Bhate. After building four database products and a strong services business, he plans to make acquisitions to drive growth. “We have issued a term-sheet to a London-based company to give us broader marketing capabilities overseas,” he discloses.
Bhate wants to also expand Molecular Connections’ presence in Western Europe and Japan and boost its fledgling presence in the oncology segment. “We will consider going public in three years; we should have eight-nine products in the market and at least $100 million in revenues by then,” says Bhate.
—Rahul Sachitanand
Back in 2001, when he first came to Bangalore and India, his start-up, Molecular Connections, was a four-person outfit, working out of a conference room-sized office; even till three years ago it was a relatively small, 25-person outfit. However, over the last three years, Molecular Connections, with its headquarters in conservative Basavanagudi, in south Bangalore, has become a 250-person outfit, with four products under its belt, and funding from Barings Private Equity.
Drug R&D: Bioinformatics booster shot
Indeed, bioinformatics is just making a comeback into the limelight after a period of consolidation three-four years ago. “Many players thought that informatics was the holy grail of drug development, while in reality it was and is an enabler of the overall process of drug development,” argues Bhate.
As a result of this over-optimistic view, several large companies including the likes of Pfizer reduced their investments a few years ago and are just beginning to re-invest in this market now.
Besides providing these services to large pharma companies (Bhate claims he has identified 100 target molecules for asthma for a German customer), Molecular Connections has also built a portfolio of database products to bolster its margins and earn more steady revenues. “We probably have the world’s largest database of protein-protein interactions and biomarkers,” boasts Bhate. According to some estimates, there are some 70 million papers in PubMed, a popular pharma data repository, and this is increasing around 20 per cent every year. “We want to provide structured, organised access to researchers,” says Bhate. After building four database products and a strong services business, he plans to make acquisitions to drive growth. “We have issued a term-sheet to a London-based company to give us broader marketing capabilities overseas,” he discloses.
Bhate wants to also expand Molecular Connections’ presence in Western Europe and Japan and boost its fledgling presence in the oncology segment. “We will consider going public in three years; we should have eight-nine products in the market and at least $100 million in revenues by then,” says Bhate.
—Rahul Sachitanand
