Biotech firm to produce human growth hormone

Biovel Life Sciences (P) Ltd, a biotechnology firm, has inked a licensing agreement with US-based Dowpharma to produce Human Growth Hormone using Pfenex Expression Technology, for the first time globally.

Announcing the completion of the first phase of its 10-acre facility at Hoskote near Bangalore, Biovel chairman and managing director P Sudhakera Naidu said HGH accounted for a USD 3 billion regulated market and the firm was optimistic about its huge potential in India.

"We are expecting to launch HGH in India within two years," he told a news conference. Using the Pfenex Expression technology, Biovel is looking at developing a cost-effective process for commercial-scale production of HGH, he said.

Dowpharma has already developed a high-yield production strain and bench scale process for production of HGH. Dowpharma will prepare and transfer to Biovel a Research Cell Bank and bench scale process, Naidu said.

This technology is based on specially modified strains of Pseudomonas fluorenscens bacteria and consistently outperforms other microbial systems.

"By improving quality and boosting yields of difficult-to-express proteins, the technology accelerates speed to market for vaccines and biotherapeutics and reduces costs when compared to alternatives," Dr Durgaprasad Annavajjula, director-technical of the firm, said.

"We hope to garner five per cent of the global market in another three years, which would make us a Rs 600 crore (Rs 6 billion) company," Naidu said.