Hyderabad-based Aragen accelerating drug, vaccine development

Hyderabad: Hyderabad-based contract research organisation Aragen has advanced science and innovation by driving Covid research for its partners by accelerating their vaccine development. The company offers discovery, development, and manufacturing services to global companies.

“We have partnered with Oragenics to advance TerraCov2, the company’s SARS CoV-2 vaccine candidate, which could provide specific immunity from the novel coronavirus. We have also supported several diagnostic firms in developing and manufacturing reagents that play a key role in their Covid test kits, that have been used extensively in Europe and the US,” Manni Kantipudi, director & CEO, Aragen, told Telangana Today in an exclusive interview.

Aragen has been in the Indian CRO space since 2001 and is one of the early entrants in this area. He said, “We have seen the Indian CRO industry grow over the last two decades significantly. Most of the CROs started with offering discovery /development chemistry services. Some of the industry leaders have expanded their capabilities in offering other discovery services such as drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, in vivo pharmacology and regulatory toxicology services.”

“Today our customers look at CROs who can become their partners in offering solutions to their R&D programmes and not just services. They prefer to work with an organisation who can offer them integrated solutions as this makes the outsourcing model extremely efficient in terms of timelines and budget,” Kantipudi added.

Aragen offers integrated discovery-development-manufacturing solutions from its facilities. “We are very clear on where our investments should go in the coming years which will maintain our CRO leadership position,” he noted.

Digital platform

Aragen has a strategy for the digitalisation of its solution offerings. The company has leveraged on IT to drive many of its operations. The company’s proprietary project management platform ‘Xlrate’ provides its customers real-time access to the status of their projects.

Customised project management tools such as eProcurement, eSynthesis, eSample, eCuleNote, eCPORTAL, eProcurement and BioActivity render key metrics to customers that drive successful outcomes of their discovery programmes. These tools enable scientists to focus on their science, while dedicated project management, logistics and supply chain teams ensure programme efficiencies, timely communication, and rapid turnaround times.

Audit-ready facilities

Aragen has been audited, and approved by several regulatory agencies from around the world including the USFDA, EDQM, AVISA, PMDA, and the WHO. “Our most recent audit was with the USFDA and was concluded with no observations. In addition, regular audits (over 5 per month) from our growing list of customers keeps us ‘audit-ready’, and at the cutting edge of the latest developments in operating practices, to ensure high regulatory compliance,” he added.

The company currently has seven global facilities along with sales offices in various regions across US, UK and JAPAC. The company’s new facility (inaugurated in July) at Mallapur campus is now operational, which enabled the company to expand its discovery services offerings to its clients.

“With our new investor – Goldman Sachs coming in, their investment at this important juncture in our company’s development underscores the tremendous opportunity ahead,” he added.

Also read: Hyderabad-based Aragen to expand footprint in US