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Ocimum Biosolutions is a one-of-its-kind in the product space in India. The
Hyderabad-based company offers solutions in the space of biotechnology. Founded
in 2001, Ocimum is today a 130-people strong organization with competencies in
LIMS, bioinformatics, microarrays, genomics tools, and custom contract research
services.
The BioIT division of Ocimum Biosolutions specializes in ready-to-use
reliable, cost-effective software solutions for the biotech and pharma industry
with a suite of Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) and
bioinformatics products such as Biotracker, Toxchek, Pharmatracker, Genchek,
OptGene, Nutrabase, Genowiz, and iRNAchek. In 2004, Ocimum acquired Microarray division of MWG Biotech,
a world leader in genomics. Ocimum leveraged the acquisition to launch a whole
suite of microarray products. These include Catalog OciChip, Custom OciChip, and
hybridization services.
Ocimum was conceived by Anuradha Acharya, who is also the CEO of the company.
Her husband, Subash Lingareddy, and P Sujata were the co-founders. Lingareddy is
now the CFO of Ocimum. Acharya, an MS in both Physics and Management Information
Systems from the University of Illinois at Chicago, had six years of experience
as an IT professional in the US. Sujata is the key person in Ocimum because she
is the one who had the domain knowledge. Sujata has over 15 years of experience
in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. She has also worked on DNA sequencing
and Genome mapping at Texas A&M University, US. Says Acharya, “We realized
that biotechnology was a niche and booming area and India would provide a huge
opportunity for technology companies in biotech and pharma.”
 Today, apart from its headquarters at Hyderabad, Ocimum Biosolutions has
operations in the US (Indianapolis) and Germany (Munich) and sales offices and
distributors throughout the world.
Riding on Global Demand
Ocimum's success story can be measured from the number of customers the
five-year-old company has. Says Acharya, “We have over 200 customers spread
across the globe.” That's no small feat by far for a company that is young
by all standards.
Ocimum's customers come from biotech research, pharmaceuticals, and the
hospital industry from all parts of the world. Some of the notable customers are
National Institutes of Health, US; Cerilliant; Dow AgroSciences; Depepartment of
Biology of New York University and Department of Plant Sciences, University of
Arizona. While the lion's share comes from the US, other key customers include
the Max Planck Institute of Infectious Diseases, Berlin, Germany; NRC-IBD
Institute for Biodiagnostics, Winnipeg, Canada; Tecan Austria GmbH, Austria;
National Institute of Cellular Biology, Ireland; UNM Health Sciences Centre,
University of New Mexico; University of Toronto, Canada and National Research
Council, Canada; among others. A truly global company, Ocimum has made its mark
in the international biosolutions platform.
Opportunities Galore
The biotechology industry today, is one of the fastest growing industries in
India after IT. This is what makes the opportunity huge for Acharya and her
team. Ocimum has registered multifold growth rate in the last three years. At a
CAGR of 800%, growth has indeed been quite phenomenal. Says Acharya, “We
expect to keep this growth rate in the next couple of years as well.”
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"We realized that
biotechnology was a niche and booming area and India would provide a huge
opportunity for technology companies in biotech and pharma"
-Anuradha Acharya, CEO, Ocimum Biosolutions |
While initial funds came from the founder's coffers, a major part of
Ocimum's seed funding has come from Ficus Enterprises, the world's largest
producer of Sulpha-methoxazole and one of the top three producers of Ranitidine
in India.
While there is always a close possibility of companies of Ocimum's stature
to get acquired, Acharya is not really worried about that at this point of time.
Instead, the team has chosen the organic (CHECK) route to grow. For example, the
acquisition of MWG Biotech's division in 2004 that specializes in bioschips
(DNA Microarrays) for a consideration of Euro 3.6 mn shows Ocimum's commitment
to organic growth strategy. “We are currently looking at acquisitions to fuel
growth. This makes sense for us at this point of time and is in tandem with our
growth strategy.”
Recognition Matters
Deloitte Technology recently conducted a survey on the fastest growing
technology companies in the Asia Pacific region. Ocimum Biosolutions has been
ranked 55th among the 500 fastest growing technology companies in 2005 in the
region. Ocimum has also been showcased at the Nasscom Innovation Awards in 2006.
Interestingly, Ocimum is an R&D company in the R&D space. In other
words, Ocimum creates solutions primarily for institutions in the field of
research. Acharya sees huge opportunity in India as well. She says, “Indian
R&D needs cost effective tools and reagents that we hope to supply.” Once
the drivers are in place, Indian R&D is likely to grow leaps and bounds and
Ocimum wants to be a catalyst in this growth phase. There is one hitch of
course, “More investments are also needed and the government needs to step in
with public-private partnerships,” adds Acharya.
So far the opportunity has been promising for Ocimum's management. Growth
has also been pretty much on track. The only challenge at this stage is to get
employees for the niche domain to which Ocimum caters.
Bhaswati Chakravorty
bhaswatic@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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