Odisha Pharma Scientist Sees Big Hope For Sector In State
New Delhi/Bhubaneswar: Mineral-rich Odisha has potential sites for developing a domestic pharma manufacturing sector, said Priyanka Priyadarshiny, head of research and development wing of Panacea Biotec Limited, New Delhi, while sounding optimistic about her home state matching steps with the booming pharmaceutical industry.
“Bharat Biotech is working on a vaccine manufacturing plant in Bhubaneswar and several start-ups are also coming up in the state. This was not the case earlier with the industry concentrated in Gujarat and Mumbai. People from Odisha are doing well in the field of pharma,” said this native of Odisha’s Banki.
Elaborating further on the possibility for growth of the sector backed by industry-friendly initiatives, she said that manufacturing plants can be set up since Odisha has the raw materials, from where tissue culture can be done. “If pharma companies decide to set up units in the state, we will be only too happy to contribute towards it,” she
added.
Priyanka is the Odisha connection in the anti-diabetic drug Lipaglyn tablets that most diabetic and cholesterol patients are familiar with. And she also led the team at Panacea for translating the Sputnik vaccine technology developed in Russia and making a few thousand doses here when the COVID pandemic was at its peak.
“Even if the technology was developed there, expertise was needed to replicate it here. It would have been difficult for someone who has not worked with adenovirus vector platform. Moreover, there is bound to be some gaps since the lab conditions and instruments there would be different from ours,” she said.
The pharma sector was a conscious career choice for Priyanka and so also the decision to return to India after postdoctoral research at University of Michigan, USA.
“I have always been interested in research, but was left with fewer choices when in Odisha. For better exposure, I moved to Delhi for my masters in 1992. The real application of science further whetted my appetite. I was exposed to biotechnology and biochemistry during my PhD days at Institute of Genomics and Integrated Biology and had to decide between academics and R&D since it was then assumed that women did not have a safe profile in pharma,” she said.
After a post-doctoral in the US, she got a call from Ranbaxy, LV Prasad Eye Institute, and National Brain Research Centre, where her husband Dr Prabodh Swain later joined.
She took six months to make up her mind and then decided to move back to India and work with Ranbaxy. “I was aware that the US could have given me a better life, more research work and recognition, but the pull towards India was greater and also the desire to give back to one’s own community,” she said.
And fortunately for her, she found an atmosphere at Ranbaxy akin to the one she experienced abroad. “Here it may take some time to get the materials and reagents compared to the US, where the system works faster, but the dedication and competitiveness among scientists when given an opportunity here, are unquestionable,” she said while narrating her round-the-clock engagement during COVID times.
Since then, she has been challenging herself and taking confident strides while serving in India’s largest pharmaceutical firms. “At Ranbaxy, I got exposure and experience on how drugs are being made. That helped me to lead the team of Cell Biology at Zydus-Cadila while conducting research on small molecules, diabetes, cardiovascular
disease and cancer moles. I was also involved in development of biosimilar drugs, which gave me an exposure to cloning and the expression of proteins,” said the daughter of a well-known chemist, Dr Kumudini Satpathy.
She led the gene therapy research programme against monogenic disorders like haemophilia using adeno associated virus platform at INTAS Biopharmaceutical Ltd. “In case of a genetic disorder, some of the genes get mutated and also get transmitted to the next generation, Right now these molecules are very expensive and only a few have been launched in the US market, costing a few thousand dollars. But it can completely replace the defective gene. Since it is a personalised therapy, it is very expensive and we worked with a vision to make this technology affordable in India. After attaining success in the lab and pre-clinical trials, it is now in the phase of getting clinical approval,” she said.
And the COVID time gave her an opportunity to lead the vaccine division team at Panacea Biotic, where she is also working on viral vaccines for bacterial infection in children. “Nowadays, it is coming in a combination pack, so there is no need to go for individual shots. So, you get Easy Six, Pentavalent and one shot of these can protect the child from five to six diseases,” she said.
The alumna of erstwhile Ravenshaw College said that the companies here, including Zydus and INTAS, too are investing in R&D, which is why it was possible to develop COVID vaccines in such a short span of time.
Talking about the criticism over the lightning-fast quest for vaccines, she said the quality did get compromised in certain aspects but most importantly millions of lives could be saved especially during the second wave when the so-called rich refused to share COVID vaccine technology with developing countries like India. “The pharma companies were working round-the-clock without a single day off. So to say that they did it just for profit would be wrong,” she stressed.
She further said that pharma companies are profitable organisations. “They have to make a profit so as to be able to invest in the R&D for the next drug. In certain cases, Panacea Biotic, where I am currently working, the margins are not very high. They have been serving billions of people with polio drops,” she said, adding that a balance has to be attained with some products in the basket solely for the welfare of people.
Elaborating on another positive outcome of COVID, she said that the pharma companies could script a success story with support from government agencies like ICMR, DBT and DST, which conducted the trials. “COVID has taught us a lesson about collaboration and the need to work together,” she said.
And as the saying (which has been altered a little) goes, you can take an Odia outside Odisha but you cannot take Odisha out of an Odia, Priyanka has been doing a bit to promote her culture and tradition in all the 30 years she has been away from the state. She is the founder member of Jagannath Cultural Academy for Research Centre in Ahmedabad, where she spent 15 good years.
Her two daughters are trained in Odissi and they make at least one trip to Odisha every year. “We carry back foodstuff from the state in bags that were filled with gifts for family members,” she said.
Not to forget, the time in Odisha is spent on relishing chat, dahibara aloodum, lassi and Mahaprasad of Lord Jagannath with the must-visit to Puri. “I have introduced Cuttack mixture, arisa pitha and chhena poda to several people in Ahmedabad and Delhi,” she said.
Priyanka spent her childhood in Rairangpur and Udala, Baripada and Cuttack where she studied. “Now, all my relatives have settled in Bhubaneswar. If we think of coming back to Odisha, we too would stay in Bhubaneswar,” she said before signing off.
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