Apart from continually reassessing strategic directions and moving with deliberate speed, pharma players are increasingly seeking to innovate their R&D services to stay ahead of the competition curve. As an ever-evolving industry, today, the pharmaceutical R&D is under great pressure to counter rising operational costs and traditional models. This is where GVK BIO, a Contract Research & Development Organization (CRDO), comes in. Realizing the potential and demand of an integrated approach to R&D, GVK offers drug discovery, chemical development, manufacturing, formulation, and analytical solutions to improve pharmaceutical productivity. “We promise our customers a quick turnaround time and cost effective R&D solutions,” says Manni Kantipudi, Director and CEO, GVK.
Headquartered in Hyderabad, India, GVK helps several big, small, and medium pharma and biotech companies to accelerate their R&D process. “We’ve seen many evolving cycles of the industry, so we take up a multi-pronged approach in converting their challenges into opportunities,” notes Kantipudi. “Our subsidiary Aragen Bioscience, located in California specializes in biologics, enabling clients with an integrated R&D services platform across both small and large molecules,”
GVK launched India’s first mobile app for drug discovery solutions called eCule. The app is one of the most efficient R&D solutions available in the industry currently. Explaining the process Kantipudi says, “If you go to our labs, you will find that every single reaction that is done is tracked and monitored. At the end of the day, we know how productive the workforce was, how many reactions and steps were done, how many compounds were made and shipped—everything on a single dashboard.”
Currently, GVK has over 2200 highly qualified and experienced scientists with over 200 PhDs and is also backed by well-defined and scalable processes and state-of-the-art research facilities.
Unlike its competitors, GVK offers a broad range of services. “Though there are many contract research firms and CRAMS in India, most of them focus only on one aspect such as analytical or discovery. But you come to us with an idea and we help you discover the molecule for you; we develop it and manufacture it—we are fully integrated in that sense,” points out Kantipudi. Companies can save time and reduce the cost dramatically due to this integration. Secondly, GVK is one of the very few CRDOs that operate in multiple sites that include Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Visakhapatnam in India and also a research facility in California, USA. “As we have a global customer base, it helps us think globally.”
Today, almost half the portfolio of drugs that are in pipeline of pharma majors are biologics which include cell therapy, gene therapy, and monoclonal antibodies. To cater to this segment GVK have acquired Aragen Bioscience to meet the global expectations. “GVK along with Aragen will look forward to steadily grow in this segment.”
The company has over 17 years of rich experience across the R&D value chain with a focus on speed and quality. Going forward, GVK plans to move its drug discovery programs to development and maximize returns in the small molecule segment. “We would want to focus on ramping up development, retain leadership in discovery, continue to work with big, small and medium companies in the US and integrate the US operations with India,” concludes Kantipudi.
