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R. Savitha

Bioinformatics is helping to interpret complex biological information for quicker drug development.

BIOINFORMATICS is beginning to capture people's imagination and time. But what is bioinformatics? The Net offers a simple definition: bioinformatics can roughly be said to be the use of computers to handle biological information. In practice, the definition is narrower. To most people, bioinformatics stands for computational molecular biology — using computers to characterise the molecular components of living things, says the Net, adding the Human Genome Project, "the greatest achievement of bioinformatics methods," is currently being completed.

So, now that we've got the basics right, what's happening in bioinformatics?

The Front Line Strategic Market Report says the worldwide market for bioinformatics is expected to touch $1.7 billion by 2006, driven by technologies that decrease the time and money required for drug discovery and development. "Consisting of content, analysis software and IT infrastructure provider segments, bioinformatics will grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20 per cent, with the largest growth in the analysis-software segment. Large-volume data mining and the need for analysis and visualisation tools to support complex analysis, such as relationship modelling, will drive the $202-million analysis software segment to grow to $634 million in 2006,'' it says.

In India, some initiative in under way. In Maharashtra, Pune is in the spotlight with initiatives by the University of Pune, Scinova India and VLife Global Sciences. VLife Sciences Technologies Pvt Ltd, headquartered in Pune, says it has developed a generic technology platform to study the molecular structure of chemical compounds and proteins. Accelrys (part of the US-based Pharmacopoeia), Tripos of the UK and Chemical Computing Group of Canada are its global competitors.Surpreet Deshpande, Chief Executive Officer, VLife, says the company has developed a research methodology based on chemogenomics, VlifeChem. This is expected to reduce the cost of new drug discovery by 50 per cent and cut the time for drug discovery by 30 per cent. VLife is also launching VLifeMDS 1.1, an "integrated, customisable and scalable software for new drug design." The company says this is a PC-based software running on the Windows operating system. It will enable companies to make their research more predictable, focussed, and cost-effective. It will help cut down the `risk of failure'. It will be made available to academic and research organisations to enable students develop expertise in `In-silico' technology — technology for the study of chemical compounds and proteins. Ashok Kolaskar, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Pune, says the biotechnology segment needs to be treated in a different fashion from IT companies and the cycle for a biotechnology company is anywhere between five and seven years. The industry is investment-hungry and investments always seem less than what it needs.

The University has set up a Department of Bioinformatics and is setting up Centres of Excellence across the country. It has identified five locations, Pune, New Delhi, Madurai, Kolkata and Bangalore, and investment of close to Rs 2.5 crore is being utilised. "The Centres of Excellence are being developed basically to cater to the manpower requirements as also to share the research that is happening in this area,'' says Kolaskar. A virtual private network is also being put in place so that information-sharing becomes faster and useful.

A key issue that users of bioinformatics face is whether to develop the technology in-house or get it from commercial vendors. Either pay a high price for the technology or spend considerable time to develop it. According to Front Line, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology companies will continue to allocate 60 per cent of their total bioinformatics spending to commercial vendors, totalling $1.1 billion by 2006.

Another player, Scinova India, has just completed its first year of operations. The company's key product is Prometheus, used for data-mining in life-science research. Rajeev Gangal, discovery informatics scientist of Scinova, says the idea is to reach the laboratory techniques faster to the consumer. The company has developed Chemlab, laboratory knowledge management software, which captures all parameters of an experiment. It keeps track of yields obtained and the quality end product, manages inventories by listing the products about to expire or those that have reached reorder levels. This and Prometheus are the two revenue-earning members of the family.

While the Indian industry's initiatives in bioinformatics are welcome, they are just the beginning and it's time for more action.

rsavitha@hotmail.com

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