"Reliance is prepared for a long haul to bring biotech to benefit life in a cost-effective and sustainable manner"

Twenty months since it was named by the United States National Institute of Health as one of the 10 institutions around the world that had established embryonic stem cell lines-clusters of super-cells, each holding the code required to form a complete human body -nothing much more is known about Reliance Life Sciences, apart from the fact that its skin-grafting product may soon hit the market. That could be because RLS is actually a private investment of the Ambanis, not a RIL subsidiary. Or it could be because the company, as its execs steadfastly maintain, is still in the R&D stage with no major announcements to make.

Whatever the reason, RLS has shunned the limelight, something that isn't really possible given the global paucity of stem cell lines. Of the 64 active stem cell lines in the world recognised by NIH, it has seven. And it has a few more outside those recognised by NIH. For the record, any company that can crack the code of these cells can programme them to grow into any human organ. Regenerative medicine, here we come! Institutions in India and elsewhere have approached the company to source its stem cell lines but RLS has declined to sell, even share. All that has only managed to add to the buzz surrounding the company-static of the sensational variety that may actually not be out of place. Circa April 2003, RLS has managed to differentiate stem cells into organs in some animal stem cell lines. Whoa! Says Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance, "Medical biotechnology and plant biotechnology present significant opportunities. Reliance is prepared for a long haul in these areas to bring biotechnology to benefit life and living systems in a cost-effective and sustainable manner." Expectedly, there are a clutch of willing suitors (DuPont Chairman and CEO Chad Holliday included) waiting in the wings to partner RLS, something the company isn't averse to as long as the relationship involves the cross-licensing of technology.

Skin For All

You still can't order a replacement liver or kidney off the shelf-that kind of development is years away-but you may soon be able to transplant some cells that regenerate damaged liver, kidney, and pancreas cells. What you can also do soon-very very soon-is buy one of RLS' skin solutions before the end of 2003 or early next year. This will be the first commercial offering from the Reliance Life Sciences stable. Cosmetology is the ultimate objective-think skin jobs, think Michael Jackson-but to start with, the bio-engineered skin will be used to treat burns. For reasons we'd rather not explore, there is a huge burns-treatment market in India. People with severe burns need skin grafts; in cases where adequate skin isn't available for grafting, a thin transparent layer of bio-engineered skin will be used to induce the body to generate new skin tissue. The cost? "Affordable," say RLS execs, and far below international costs, which puts the price of a 10 cm by 10 cm temporary skin patch at around Rs 3,500. But with the added benefit of hospitalisation time coming down from as much as six months to a few weeks, not too many people are likely to protest.

Clinical trials for the skin product will begin shortly. Part of the work on the bio-engineered skin is being carried out at Mumbai's Hurkisondas Nurrotumdas Hospital and Research Centre. This writer visited the hospital, but could see nothing in its very ordinary appearance to suggest the import of the work that was going on inside its confines. That understatedness is a recurring theme. Much like the Reliance Infocomm vision statement, RLS' talks of "affordability" and "targeted at the lower socio-economic category". Only, unlike what happened with Infocomm, you are unlikely to see Mukesh Ambani smiling at you from the cover of this magazine (or for that matter, any other) and telling you all you wish to know about RLS.

The Foundations Of Life

The Ambanis were clear right from the time they invested in Reliance Life Sciences that medical and plant biotechnology presented a more immediate opportunity than industrial biotech. Within this, it is regenerative medicine that RLS has identified as the mother lode. Today, the company is working on three distinct areas of stem cell research: embryonic, haemopoietic (related to blood cells) and mesenchymal (bone- and cartilage-related). Haemopoietic stem cells can be found in the umbilical cord blood (or just cord blood) and have the capacity to create new blood cells. That makes this line of research critical in the treatment of thalassemia and leukemia, among other blood-related disorders. RLS has a one-of-its-kind repository of haemopoietic stem cells. It has branded its offering Relicord and is in talks with physicians to use them in actual transplants. And mesenchymal cells can differentiate into any non-blood cell, including bones and muscles.

In addition to these streams of stem cell research, RLS is also doing some work in the area of plant biotechnology, trying to harvest cells with therapeutic properties from plants. And its pure R&D work is complemented by small divisions that offer such services as contract research, molecular diagnostics and assisted reproduction.

Over the next two years, RLS' current workforce of 110 will increase five times. And the company will move to a massive Kvaerner built-to-order facility near Mumbai by March, 2004. This, say company execs, will have the works-animal houses, green houses, even pilot manufacturing facilities. That won't take too much money; the Ambanis plan to invest an additional $20 million (Rs 96 crore) in the venture (they have already invested $5 million, or Rs 24 crore, over these two years. Their instructions to the people in charge of RLS are to just build the foundations of the life sciences business and launch exploratory forays into emerging areas, a precursor to deciding what the company's focus should be. Patents dealing with stem cell research and molecular therapeutics have been filed in India, the US, and other countries, says one exec. "When it happens, it will happen big."