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Reliance thinks big in biotech, stem cells

Biotechnology is the new dream project at India's largest conglomerate Reliance, an industrial group known for its hard-nosed business acumen, whose interests range from refineries and petrochemicals to power and telecom.

Within months of making a low-key entry into biotech, the $13.2-billion group was identified by the United States in August as having seven of the 64 embryonic stem cell lines globally eligible for US funding.

The biotech venture could catapult Reliance -- which built an industrial empire through constant backward integration from textiles to oil -- to the forefront of cutting-edge technology.

Embryonic stem cells hold promise for treating conditions such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries. Research is controversial because obtaining the cells involves destroying an embryo.

Firuza Parikh, founder director of Reliance's biotech project, told Reuters in a recent interview that its research could yield a treatment for Parkinson's in four to five years' time.

"Recognition from the US National Institutes of Health has put us on the world biotech map," said Parikh, a visiting faculty member at Yale University's School of Medicine.

Reliance's stem cell project enjoys a major advantage: there is no debate in India for now on the sourcing of embryonic cells, which analysts feel will give the country an advantage over researchers in the West.

While only seven stem cell lines are eligible for U.S. funding, insiders say Reliance plans to work on many more.

"Our whole idea is to have a number of stem cell lines as we believe there is a large amount of genetic diversity in India," a group spokesman told Reuters.

Apart from embryonic stem cell work, it plans the world's largest repository for blood drawn from umbilical cords and enriched in life-giving stem cells, and also a "skin factory" where it will make artificial skin for burn victims.

Low key

The group, better known for a state-of-the-art refinery and petrochemical complexes, houses its nine-month-old biotech company on two floors of a nondescript 21-storey hospital building in central Bombay.

Weeds sprout from the facade of the building's upper storeys, its outer walls are unpainted and the silence of its corridors is in contrast to the hum of the Hurkisondas Nurrotamdas Hospital in front.

The hospital, which did not have the cash to complete the building, is now funded by the Ambanis, Reliance's founders.

The building's modest facade masks the conglomerate's ambitions.

"We aim to set up the world's first fully integrated cell biology company," Reliance Industries Ltd's senior executive vice president K V Subramaniam said.

Reliance Industries Ltd is the core company of the group. Reliance Life Sciences, the new biotech firm, is funded directly by the Ambani family. It has invested $5 million in the biotech venture, and there are plans to plough in another $25 million over the next two to three years.

On the cards are three other research centres in Bombay and other parts of the country -- the tight-lipped company only says sites have been identified.

"We will be horizontally integrated across several cell biology disciplines and vertically from basic research to a clinical environment," said Subramaniam, a quiet 44-year-old chemical engineer co-ordinating Reliance's biotech projects.

A group spokesman said that Reliance was also working on various types of stem cells -- embryonic, blood, hepatic and retinal -- and on molecular diagnostics.

"We will be vertically integrated in the sense we will have a repository for cord blood, will do applied research and also treat patients," the spokesman said.

"Our idea is to set up a (laboratory) bench to bedside operation."

Integration integral

Integration is not new to the Reliance group.

It started out making textiles in 1966, worked backwards to textile fibres, and then into the petrochemicals used in making fibres at Reliance Industries Ltd.

Partly in order to source these petrochemicals, it set up -- in just 33 months -- a 27-million-tonne a year refinery by Reliance Petroleum Ltd, which is majority-owned by Reliance group.

Reliance is the world's third largest producer of paraxylene and the sixth largest polypropylene maker.

Analysts are watching the Reliance push into biotechnology with interest.

"Scale and integration are not necessarily advantages in biotech: what they need is quality research. Reliance has picked the right area to get into with stem cells," said Sunidhi Consultancy analyst Richard D'Souza.

Skin, blood and embryos

The company has moved fast on culturing skin cells, and should be in the market in a year's time with India's first artificial skin.

"About 300 people die every day of burns in India, many due to infections. We hope to fulfil a need here, supplying skin at a third of Western prices," the spokesman said.

The repository will store blood enriched in stem cells that could treat disorders such as thalassemia and leukaemia. These stem cells are the precursors to other blood cells.

"We have the opportunity to create the world's largest storage capacity of 13,000 units of enriched placental cord blood," the spokesman said.

Reliance's embryonic stem cell project is also integrated: it sources the embryos from a fertility clinic it runs in the same building. At the clinic, it plans to offer a wide range of in-vitro fertilisation methods to childless couples.

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