Roswell Park spinoff, Indian pharma company start joint venture in New York

A major Indian pharmaceutical company is forming a joint venture with a startup life-sciences company in Buffalo that grew out of research conducted at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

AMI Organics, which has two manufacturing sites in the western Indian state of Gujarat, is investing $2 million in the joint venture with Photolitec, the Roswell Park spinoff. The investment and the joint venture will help Photolitec complete the costly clinical trials required to determine if its cancer treatments are safe and effective before they can be brought to market.

“It is good, not only for Photolitec, but I think it is fantastic for Western New York,” said Ravindra Pandey, a Roswell Park scientist and Photolitec’s founder.

The newly formed company is expected to open with five or six employees in space on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus sometime in the next few months, according to AMI Organics and Photolitec officials, who met in Buffalo this week to close the deal.

Pandey founded Photolitec in 2010. The startup rents space from Roswell Park, but by the end of this month will move its five employees to the Cleveland BioLabs building on the Medical Campus. The company has raised $5 million from Hisun Pharma, a Chinese drug company, and $1.6 million in National Institutes of Health.

Photolitec is focusing on commercializing two compounds for the treatment and detection of cancer that were developed by Pandey and other researchers at Roswell Park in collaboration with the University at Buffalo and the University of Michigan. Photolitec licensed from Roswell Park the rights to commercialize the compounds

Be the first to comment

The Indian Panorama - Best Indian American Newspaper in New York & Dallas - Comments