Biocon opens facility to produce insulin devices

Asia’s premier biopharmaceuticals company Biocon, inaugurated a world class facility for manufacturing new generation, patient-friendly devices for its insulins portfolio on September 15, 2015. The company also launched Basalog One, a high end, ready to use insulin glargine disposable pen for better blood sugar management for people with diabetes, manufactured in this facility. The share price of the company on BSE increased by 1.08 per cent and is trading at Rs 449 on intraday basis.

Biocon has built up 1 lakh square feet facility in Bangalore with 'Make in India for the World' similar to the Government’s campaign of 'Make in India.' Biocon's insulin pen like device facility was built at a an investment of Rs 100 crore and has capacity to manufacture 10 million pens a year. The company is going to quadruple its capacity in future. It is also working on developing insulin in a tablet form.

The global insulin delivery devices market stood at USD 9.4 billion in 2014, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7 per cent to reach an estimated USD 14.1 billion in 2020. The US presents the largest market opportunity for these devices followed by EU. Asia is the fastest growing market for insulin delivery devices due to rapid economic and social change leading to higher incidence of diabetes in the region.

Biocon’s Basalog One, a long acting basal insulin glargine presented as an innovative, pre-filled pen, is the first product to roll out of this facility. Basalog One as a ‘once a day’ product is convenient to administer and almost painless, which will enable better patient compliance and help patients manage their blood sugar levels most effectively. The pen is lightweight, easy to carry and disposable. Biocon’s earlier launched Basalog in 2009 and benefited several lakhs of patients in India. The company has aim to provide insulin products to at least one in five insulin dependent diabetes patients, anywhere in the world.

Biocon has collaborated with Becton Dickinson & Company, a leading global medical devices company based in the US, to specially customize the design of this device to enable it to deliver Biocon’s range of insulin products. Basalog One is built at Biocon’s new devices facility using a 3 ml cartridge of 100 IU insulin glargine. Biocon’s Basalog One is a first disposable insulin glargine pen, designed internationally and built locally for the global markets. This ready to use, world class long acting basal insulin glargine pen is priced at Rs 749 MRP. The country's diabetic population is projected to cross 100 million by 2035 from over 65 million now. According to the International Diabetes Federation the device will address the rising need for insulin glargine in India, where the market is growing at 21 per cent annually.

Biocon is India’s largest and fully integrated biopharmaceutical company. As an emerging global biopharmaceutical enterprise serving customers in over 100 countries, it is committed to reduce therapy costs of chronic diseases like autoimmune, diabetes, and cancer. It has successfully developed and taken a range of novel biologics, biosimilars, differentiated small molecules and affordable recombinant human insulin and analogs from ‘Lab to Market.'