Sri Mosur, CEO of Jubilant Biosys

JBL, which also has a strong history of collaboration with Japan's top pharmaceutical companies, has taken advantage of local knowledge and skills while protecting intellectual property in its mission to speed up the discovery of drugs that will benefit the world.

World Eye Reports had the opportunity to speak with JBL's CEO Sri Mosur about the prospects of Indo-Japanese collaboration in his field.

WER: Why did you return to India from the U.S.?

I believe in the migration of innovation. There is a cycle of innovation in every country's history. Innovation was once the domain of Europe. Then it migrated to Japan and then the U.S. Now is the time for the rest of Asia.

Like many other Indians, I came back from America because I did not want to miss such a great, exciting time in India when decision-making can have an impact on the country and region. It is an inspiring and challenging environment to come back to.

Just a few years ago, people told me that innovation could not take root in India, but you can see it happening all over the country now. This is a place of great change.

What synergy do you think exists in the Indo-Japanese relationship in pharmaceuticals?

First, there is huge potential for Japan-specific technologies to be transformed into global technologies using Indian scientific understanding and native-English skills.

For example, we work with a company that has created outstanding software for clinical and bio sample data management. Wonderful software but the problem is it's in Japanese.

We decided to become partners to learn how to use the software in our collaborative research work and then later convert it to English. We could then transform this into a global tool and provide a complete support system for it in English, which could be accessed by the global market. Suddenly, Japan is no longer the market for this software. The entire world is.

Second, if you conceptualize a product outside of Japan, entering the Japanese market is a long process. Similarly, some Japanese companies find it equally difficult to enter other international markets because they have naturally done everything in Japanese.

A simultaneous effort with shared technology but a good intellectual property protection plan will help Japanese companies globalize at a much higher speed and lower cost, and Indian companies have the chance to enter the Japanese market immediately. Negotiating trade barriers is also significantly easier when you have a collaborative product.

Finally, ethnicity plays a major role in clinical trials, and India is blessed with total racial and genetic diversity. Japanese companies will have an ideal multiethnic test market to develop a complete global portfolio right here. And in India you can do a direct compliance across Europe, the Asia-Pacific and the U.S. Ð from our IND to dealing with the FDA. You can back-end a full support system right here in India at an extremely low cost.

Such synergies exist. Technology can be co-developed, then commercialized, and supported by Indian companies.

What is the most important thing that your Japanese colleagues need to know about the potential for this collaboration?

In our industry, Japan, Europe, the U.S. and Asia stand apart. But standing apart is not as strong as leveraging all of our advantages together and working together will only globalize our industry.

There are extremely synergistic opportunities to explore in the pharmaceuticals sphere for both the Indian and Japanese industries. The science can originate in either place but if the resources between the two communities are combined, development and commercialization will increase, perhaps three-fold. And, of course, it is highly cost-effective for all involved.

With our international staff and a global perspective, this kind of international collaboration Ð co-development leading to global commercialization is exactly what a company like Jubilant is all about.

www.jubilantbiosys.com