Health and Medicines

Protein purification equipment at Shantha Biotechnics

Hyderabad-based Shantha Biotechnics is up for sale. Its majority stakeholder, French biotech bioMérieux, plans to offload half its holding, as the Indian company failed to deliver the expected returns. While Shantha’s founder K.I. Varaprasad Reddy claims that bioMérieux may close the deal with UK drug giant GlaxoSmithKline or France’s Sanofi-Aventis within a month, industry insiders say that bioMérieux is unlikely to find takers so easily.

Shantha signed a technology agreement with Switzerland’s Berna Biotech (later acquired by Dutch biotech Crucell) to manufacture the pentavalent vaccine (five in one) back in 2007. Shantha recently received an order for 350 million doses from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). However the agreement included a clause stipulating that if there was a change in majority shareholder, the agreement would become void. Mr. Reddy though says that Shantha Biotechnics could manufacture the vaccine using a different technology.

After launching India’s first recombinant vaccine for hepatitis B in 1997, Shantha Biotechnics introduced a set of other combination vaccines that offered immunization against multiple ailments. Another promising vaccine for rotavirus—which causes infant diarrhoea—funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is slated for launch in 2012. Shantha Biotechnics also has a product line from Pegylated Proteins. Most analysts say they don’t know the real reason for the sale. Emails and phone calls to bio-Mérieux weren’t answered.

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