Focus

NPIL's R&D focus is designed to maximize opportunities all through the research value chain at a time when the pharma industry is poised at its most exciting juncture with biotechnology and genetic engineering opening up new avenues.

Pharma leaders are not significantly increasing the number of NCEs in their pipelines preferring instead to requisition R&D boutiques that work at creating new molecular designs. Global spending on R&D is likely to grow 8-12 per cent by 2010 and trends indicate that up to 30 per cent of global research expenditure will be outside established corporate boundaries on a contract or part time investment basis. 

On the other hand, the volume and complexity of work in the international markets that is required to bring an entity to approval is increasing steadily. In developed markets patient recruitment is a critical problem with rising costs both in direct money terms and indirectly by extending the time to approval, thereby shortening the life under patent. Some estimates show that patient recruitment and medical personnel account for nearly 70 per cent of the clinical costs that are required to bring a drug to market. 

NPIL therefore intends to harness India's considerable skills in research-based activities like informatics, structure-based design and synthesis, and molecular biology. NPIL's aim is to be an integrated pharmaceutical company with a commitment to discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of indigenous pharmaceutical products for the global marketplace. With this target in mind, the company places a premium on promoting new concepts and individual inspiration from all sources - external and internal.

NPIL will initially focus on four therapeutic areas, Oncology, Inflammation, Diabetes/Metabolic Syndrome, Infectious Diseases