GVK Biosciences—The choice of private equity firms

The last one decade has witnessed a wave of CROs emerging in India. Cost effectiveness and easily available patient pool in India have proved an attraction for foreign pharmaceutical majors. Sensing the business opportunity, some of India's prominent business groups have entered this business. The $1.5 billion GVK conglomerate having interests in infrastructure (power, transportation and urban infrastructure), services (hotels, life sciences and financial) and manufacturing (particle boards, resins and chemicals) is one such promoter. Armed with entrepreneurial vision and a passion to do something new, G V Sanjay Reddy, MD of GVK Biosciences spearheaded GVK's foray into the life-sciences domain in April 2001 in Hyderabad. Reddy has led GVK BIO through the initial phase of evolution with remarkable success. He is also the person behind attracting the right scientific talent, leadership, processes and infrastructure to ensure continuous growth. The year 2004 was crucial for GVK Biosciences when Davinder S Brar, ex CEO and MD of Ranbaxy Laboratories joined GVK BIO as a promoter chairman.

Multidirectional growth

GVK BIO has received a host of awards in the past few years including being judged the 'Best CRO in India' in 2005. It was also identified as one of the top twenty companies to watch out for in 2006. Giving more details, Manni Kantipudi, President, GVK Biosciences, says, "GVK BIO was the winner of Proximare's best CRO in India award in 2005 and was also shortlisted by Wyeth to set up a dedicated research centre in late 2005. Companies like Sequoia that had invested in companies like Google and Apple made private equity (PE) investments in GVK BIO. Besides this, AstraZeneca recognised and published a paper on GVK BIO Informatics Database. Today GVK BIO services 15 of the top 20 global biopharma companies."

GVK BIO’s stated mission is to become a global leader in life sciences services by delivering value added scientific services in biotech, pharma, agriculture, contract research and BioIT.

Employees are the strength

"Today the company (GVK BIO and Inogent) has more than 1500 employees spread across facilities in Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Gurgaon. GVK BIO offers medicinal and process chemistry, informatics, biology, clinical research, clinical pharmacology and collaborative research services. GVK BIO has well planned growth strategy. It will continue to grow organically and scale through its existing services. The company is actively looking at acquisitions in the clinical development and formulations areas both in India and internationally," informs Kantipudi.