From Nature, 12 December 2018:
Anu Acharya was in her twenties when the human genome was first mapped in its entirety. In 2000, the young Indian entrepreneur was just breaking into the biotechnology arena with her first start-up — the genomics and bioinformatics company Ocimum Biosolutions in Hyderabad. She saw the Human Genome Project’s achievements as opening up a new world of possibilities in personalized medicine, informed by an individual’s genetic profile and predispositions — but at the time, the field of genomic medicine was dominated by Western science.
“I wanted to make sure that India had its own voice heard in that,” Acharya says. So, a decade later, she launched her second biotech start-up — molecular-diagnostics company Mapmygenome, also in Hyderabad — to bring the personalized-medicine revolution to India’s diverse population.
“Because, ultimately, when you’re making medicine precise, it has to be for specific individuals and populations rather than based on one population that has been studied.”
Acharya is among India’s rapidly growing ranks of biotechnology entrepreneurs and start-ups that are riding a wave of government enthusiasm, free-flowing venture capital and growing demand from an increasingly wealthy population that wants better treatment options. These factors are helping to drive India’s biotechnology industry beyond its historical focus on unbranded generic drugs and into the innovation limelight. Read more.
Bianca Nogrady 