Sacrifices, trade-offs paved big drug win: Glenmark CEO

Saldanha says firm had no Plan B if its blood cancer drug candidate had not worked

- Jessica Jani, T. Surendar & Satish John

The road to drug discovery is long, arduous and littered with failure, but the payoff at the end makes it worth the trouble. It's a lesson that India's best pharmaceutical entrepreneurs knew all along. Yet, it took a Glenn Saldanha to prove it.

"We were always resilient in how we approached innovation. I think that's what finally rewarded us," Saldanha, chief executive officer and managing director of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd, told Mint in an exclusive interview.

He was referring to one of the largest deals for an Indian biopharma firm after Glenmark's US-based unit Ichnos Glenmark Innovation (IGI) secured a $700-million exclusive licensing agreement with AbbVie for its blood cancer drug candidate last week. AbbVie will also pay as much as $1.23 billion as various milestones are completed, as well as tiered, double-digit royalties on net sales.

ISB 2001, the investigational drug to treat multiple myeloma, has shown promise in phase-1 clinical trials. Of 35 patients who had exhausted all existing lines of therapy unsuccessfully, 79% showed a clinical response to it, and 30% were cancer-free.

"I hope this acts as a catalyst to expanding the innovation landscape in India...we've demonstrated that you can do it," said Saldanha.