India's Enzene Biosciences raises $50m

Eight Roads and F-Prime are both Fidelity International affiliates with a strong interest in biotech. Alkem Laboratories, Enzene’s parent company, also participated in the deal.

Eight Roads established its first dedicated India healthcare and life sciences fund last year with a corpus of USD 250m and a focus on India. F-Prime, a biotech specialist formerly known as Fidelity Biosciences, is making its eighth India investment in the past two years, according to AVCJ Research.

Enzene focuses on biosimilars, phytopharmaceuticals and synthetic peptides, and novel biologics. Operations span drug development, analytics, product licensing, and manufacturing. Its factory in Pune has been described as first-of-its-kind, fully automated, and with end-to-end capacities.

Biologics denotes an emerging category of synthesized large-molecule drugs that are considered more difficult to develop and manufacture. Biosimilars are generic versions of existing biologic drugs, introduced at lower price points once the patent for the original drug expires.

The US Food & Drug Administration said biologics “represent the cutting-edge of biomedical research and, in time, may offer the most effective means to treat a variety of medical illnesses and conditions that presently have no other treatments available.”

Enzene’s product portfolio includes a gene therapy “kit” that includes several molecules, as well as a pipeline of at least 13 biosimilars. Three of the biosimilars have completed clinical trials and launched. They target conditions such as osteoporosis, tumours, and an immune system disorder.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• South Asia
• Healthcare
• Technology
• Early-stage
• India
• Eight Roads
• Fidelity
• Pharmaceuticals