Will Epygen's biosimilars bets pay off?

Debayan Ghosh, founder, Epygen Group, has ambitious plans to snag a slice of the booming $70 billion global biosimilar pie. In a conversation with Viveka Roychowdhury, he analyses the journey so far, spanning pandemic preparedness projects like protein-based vaccines, building up pipeline revenue streams in diabetes, oncology, immunology and cardiovascular biosimilars, and his strategies to scale up and expand to other therapeutics like anti-obesity drugs

- Viveka Roychowdhury

One of the trends set to define 2025, and the decade ahead, is the 2022-30 patent cliff, and the gradual shift in biopharma revenues from small to large molecules. While India was able to leverage the 2008 patent cliff of small molecules, the same playbook will not work for biologics and biosimilars.

Of the top 24 blockbuster drugs going off-patent during the patent cliff 2022-2030, 14 are biologics, as per a study conducted in August 2023 by the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers, Govt of India. The study also points out that sales of biologics like biosimilars, immunomodulators and monoclonal antibodies, which comprised 69 per cent of overall revenues of these 24 blockbuster drugs in 2022 will increase to 75 per cent by 2030.

Many biopharma companies in India have already leveraged the biosimilar patent cliff. For instance, the DoP study points out that while blockbuster biologic Humira (adalimumab) lost exclusivity in the US in early 2023, the Indian government permitted multiple companies to manufacture adalimumab under the provisions of compulsory licensing from 2018. Biocon became the first company from India to launch its biosimilar Hulio in the US in July 2023.

While Biocon and peers are in the limelight, this decade will hopefully mark the coming of age of quite a few 'baby Biocons': smaller biotech companies, following in the footsteps of the pioneers. One of these aspiring companies is the Dubiotech Park-headquartered Epygen Group, headed by founder Debayan Ghosh. Not surprisingly, he cut his biotechnology teeth in ... where else? Biocon.

A seed is sown

After a BTech from University of Calcutta, Ghosh was part of one of India's earliest batches of MTechs in biotechnology from Anna University, Chennai's Center For Biotechnology. In 1993, Ghosh, like most aspiring biotechnologists, made his way to Biocon.