Introducing Lab Rats: A Mint series on India’s biotech startups

This is a Mint Premium article gifted to you.Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.

Mumbai: On 10 October, Hyderabad-based biotech startup PopVax announced a new milestone—its broad-spectrum, fridge-stable covid-19 mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) had entered human trials. This is especially significant for easing distribution in developing countries with limited cold-chain infrastructure, especially in the event of another outbreak, which would require prompt deployment.

Many mRNA vaccines, which are now being developed for several diseases including cancer, require ultracold storage—in the range of -20 to -80 degrees Celsius. PopVax’s candidate, which is being tested for safety in patients, can be stored in refrigerators (2-8 degrees Celsius) for over nine months.

The startup hopes to advance its platform for other infectious diseases as well as cancers, according to chief executive officer (CEO) and founder Soham Sankaran.

PopVax plans to make its covid-19 drug candidate open source for researchers and producers after completing Phase 1 trials—“our gift to the world,” said Sankaran.

Improving the temperature stability of mRNA vaccines is a crucial requirement, but one that few are trying to address. The research, though sparse, is largely happening in academic settings or in developing countries. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are trying to tweak formulations to be heat-resistant and have demonstrated promising results in mice. Thailand’s first mRNA shot, ChulaCov19, remains stable at fridge temperatures for three months and has successfully completed phase 1 trials.

This is where Indian biotech stands today—on the precipice of groundbreaking development for a global patient pool, addressing access and availability, while staying abreast of global competitors.

These are, of course, still few and far. India’s total R&D (research and development) pipeline for novel drug research is currently pegged at roughly 225 molecules. This would be about a tenth of China’s total pipeline, according to Vikash Agarwalla, India leader, healthcare practice, BCG.

What is notable, says Agarwalla, is that roughly 17% of the molecules in India’s R&D pipeline are first-in-class, meaning a completely new drug or mechanism to treat a disease. This compares to China’s 24%, demonstrating the quality of innovation happening in India.

China, which has already surpassed the US for the largest number of clinical trials globally, is targeting 25% of global first-in-class drugs now, as part of its five-year-plan to cement itself as a global centre of biotech innovation.

To understand a drug, you must understand a disease. And to understand many diseases, you must understand proteins.

Proteins are essential to almost every biological process. They send messages, catalyse chemical reactions, regulate cell growth, build structures such as collagen, and recognise foreign or abnormal molecules. Your DNA holds the instructions for making proteins.

Many diseases involve proteins gone wrong—too much, too little, in the wrong place, altered by mutations, or acting abnormally. Developing treatments can therefore mean finding a way to interact with a disease-related protein, either directly or by altering the processes that regulate it. That is where the challenge lies, because proteins aren’t simple switches—they are three-dimensional, constantly moving molecules whose shapes and interactions influence how they work.

A drug must find a suitable target and interact with it to get the desired result without causing harm to the body. This lies at the heart of much modern drug discovery.

In this series, we highlight a few such promising startups. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Rather, it is a sample size designed to capture the depth and breadth of the country’s biotech ecosystem.