A WINNING FORMULA

SYNGENE INTERNATIONAL WAS STARTED BY BIOCON LIMITED IN 1993 TO PROVIDE CONTRACT RESEARCH SERVICES FOR GLOBAL PHARMA COMPANIES. NEARLY THREE DECADES LATER, THE LISTED ENTITY HARBOURS AMBITIONS TO BECOME A GLOBAL SCIENCE COMPANY IN ITS OWN RIGHT.

- DEBOJYOTI GHOSH

An announcement is imminent.

This will be the first approved drug to treat patients with progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis, or PFIC, a rare inherited condition that causes progressive liver disease until a transplant is required. The global biopharmaceutical company will grab the headlines, but as deserving will be Syngene International Limited, the Bengaluru-based contract research organisation that provided the entire workflow of the testing phase, from pre-clinical supplies to regulatory filings in the U.S. and Europe.

Syngene, which declined to name the client for confidentiality reasons, started in 1993 as a part of biopharma Biocon Limited. It has since grown to a team of about 5,400 employees, roughly 4,700 of whom are scientists who provide end-to-end drug discovery, research, development, and manufacturing services. The company, which was listed on the bourses in 2015, has amassed a clientele of over 400 global companies—ones that typically resist outsourcing critical drug discovery work outside the U.S and Europe.

No wonder Jonathan Hunt, CEO and managing director, Syngene, can barely contain the pride in his voice. “The minute you come through the doors into our campus, you can travel the world scientifically. I am proud of the fact that we do that degree of knowledge-intensive work in Bengaluru.”