"The life sciences community is looking at new-age vaccines for immunisation"

…says Sanjeev Saxena, chairman&chief promoter, Actis Biologics Group of Companies as he describes emerging opportunities in the biotech industry. With him at the helm, the company today has incorporated under its banner Kohinoor Biotech, Aum Life Sciences, Mercury Biotech and Deep Biotech, all with an aim to commercialise various technology platforms.

Saxena has over 20 years of experience in business development and sales&marketing in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to Actis, he has set up companies like Sepragen Corporation - a NASDAQ-listed company, Scanis - a medical instrumentation providing company and ProGenix Biotech Therapeutics Contract Manufacturing. His current endeavour with Actis Biologics Malaysia involves a far more ambitious project - setting up a Biotech City, which will be an ecosystem for life sciences professionals to thrive on.

In this exclusive e-interview with Kavita Tate, Saxena highlights Actis Biologics' efforts in emerging areas of gene therapy research and the budding biotechnology sector in the country.

On gene therapy research…

Gene therapy is an interesting field of life sciences. Dr French Anderson's (also known as 'Father of gene therapy') initial research revealed that the transformation or elimination of a disease was possible.

One can carry out corrective actions at a genetic level within the body in gene therapy and possibly help restore the state of equilibrium to an earlier level, thereby possibly eliminating a particular disease. This is genetic engineering at its best. There are two types of gene therapies - somatic cell therapy and germ line therapy. In somatic gene therapy, a gene is introduced into the body to cure a disease, while in germ line the gene introduced into the body is passed on from one generation to the next. Somatic cell is a comparatively safer method, as it is contained to one individual, whereas germ line gene therapy can affect generations after generations. The ramifications of germ line gene therapy can be huge both positive as well as negative, and this is not something we wish to explore.

Gene therapy research in India...

There is very little, if any, gene therapy work being done in India. The exceptions are Actis Biologics Pvt Ltd (ABPL) and Actrec. ABPL is currently working on the introduction of Gene MSP36 into cancer cells to cause them to die by production of a protein, which will inhibit the rapid multiplication of the cells and their metastisis. It also inhibits the further production of blood vessels, which are critical for the delivery of nutrition to these cancer cells. Some potential areas where gene therapy can be possible in the near future could be formation of bypasses around a clot, by the body, instead of bypass surgery. It has the potential of being used for rejuvenation of dead neurons in the brain and hence, helps Alzheimer's patients or eliminates diabetes. The possibilities are enormous. However, it yet has to prove its efficacy and hopefully we could be the first ones to do so in cancer.

Key research areas and product portfolio of ABPL…

We are working in the area of gene therapy in cancer/oncology and soon plan to expand into other disease segments using this gene therapy approach. Further, we are working in the field of anti-sense using Ribozyme technology. The idea here is to interrupt incorrect signals sent out by the body. By doing this, we can prevent the body from incorrect functioning. For example, Angiozyme, which is now in Phase 3 studies, has been shown to attack the Vegfr1 receptor and interrupt the message that tells the body to produce more blood vessels from forming in a cancer zone. Since no blood vessels will be formed in this zone, the tumour cannot be formed or if it has, it begins to die as the nutrition to these tumour cells is interrupted.

This is similar to a strategic war, which is conducted by defense forces in a war situation. One way is to take the enemy head on (this is what happens in case of chemotherapy or radiation), where obviously tremendous amount of casualties result; another is to do a surgical intervention; while the third is to cut off the supply chain and make the terrain hostile to the enemy. The third strategy is Angiozyme.

Another area we are working on is making current drugs more effective. We have created a targeting mechanism, wherein we modify existing therapies to be more targeted, ie, the drug is released at site.

We are also working to make production processes of biotech-recombinant proteins more effective to lower costs. This will enable the production of these drugs for less than 20 per cent of the current cost.  Furthermore, we have developed a computer-aided diagnostic technology for early detection of various abnormalities in medical images be it X-rays, CT, MRI, ultrasound, etc. In addition, our scientists and engineers have been working on a new respiratory disorder spacer technology. This spacer allows for delivery of 80 per cent of drugs into the lungs with no side-effects produced by deposit zones in the current spacers and inhalers.