The entrepreneurial instinct and the remarkable aspects of Biotechnology enticed the initiators of Denovo Biolabs to such an extent that they launched a life science platform in 2013 to develop advanced products and services of the finest quality for domestic and international market. Having similar interests and objectives, the founders ventured to make the indigenous development of critical biological reagents and their application in Biosimilar drug development, medical treatment and diagnostic sectors, affordable and within easy reach. On the other hand, the vast and multifarious domains enabled the prime movers to conduct detailed and well-founded experiments and mapped out customized services for the biopharmaceutical, Biotechnology industries, and Academic institutions.
“Being an alumnus of Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) Bangalore, the seeds of entrepreneurship were already sown during the academic time. Both Manjunath, Dinesh worked in the Biotechnology industry for about a decade and Babulal had experience in Finance for over 25 years, then joined hands and established the firm. As a biotechnology startup, there were several challenges to be dealt with such as laboratory infrastructure, trained manpower, mentorship, regulatory aspects. Fortunately, they got in touch with the then Director of IBAB Prof. N Yathindra and Dr. Gayatri Sabrewal who supported their idea and provided functional laboratory space at IBAB which fulfilled most of the start-up requirement to start with. The objective was to combine their knowledge and innovative ideas with the current market scenario and formulate solutions to comply with the needs of the clients. Denovo has also signed collaborative MoU with academic institutions and companies. “Our main area of interest is Biotherapeutics, Novel therapeutics for Diseases and Molecular Medicine," says Manjunath, Director/R&D Head.
Our strength lies in developing fully indigenous biological reagents for Biological research. This has resulted into benefiting end customers in terms of cost-effectiveness, accessibility, shorter lead time and better customer support, says Dinesh, Director Business Operations.
To ensure the quality of its products, Denovo Biolabs implemented an internal quality management system and adopted international quality standard such as ISO9001-2015. The company has contrived innovative services in the major divisions’ i.e. Preclinical/ clinical sample Analysis, Gene & Protein, Antibody Development, Conjugation/Labelling, Toxicology & Efficacy Studies, Cell-Based Assays, Drug Pharmacopeia studies, etc. To measure up the requisites as per the genre, Denovo Biolabs develops and manufactures indigenous PK ELISA Kits, immunogenicity ELISA kits, Assay reagents, Recombinant proteins, Cytokine Kits, and other such solutions. Currently, the company has a team of experienced doctors, Ph.D. holders and master degree holders.
Denovo Biolabs is marketing the products& services in the domestic and international market through direct to clients, distributors and OEM channels. In this direction, Denovo Biolabs is exporting products to the USA, Europe, Russia, and South Asian markets. This has helped the company to make greater presence in the overseas market. “The company has plans to engage with new potential business opportunities through biopartnering and will make an attempt to explore to the most possible extent,” Babulal says.
The Setbacks Encountered
Despite the fact that the company is backed by great authorities, it had to put up with various ups and downs in their venture.
Denovo Biolabs propagates indigenous development of critical biological reagents and their application in Biosimilar drug development
“Being an alumnus of Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) Bangalore, the seeds of entrepreneurship were already sown during the academic time. Both Manjunath, Dinesh worked in the Biotechnology industry for about a decade and Babulal had experience in Finance for over 25 years, then joined hands and established the firm. As a biotechnology startup, there were several challenges to be dealt with such as laboratory infrastructure, trained manpower, mentorship, regulatory aspects. Fortunately, they got in touch with the then Director of IBAB Prof. N Yathindra and Dr. Gayatri Sabrewal who supported their idea and provided functional laboratory space at IBAB which fulfilled most of the start-up requirement to start with. The objective was to combine their knowledge and innovative ideas with the current market scenario and formulate solutions to comply with the needs of the clients. Denovo has also signed collaborative MoU with academic institutions and companies. “Our main area of interest is Biotherapeutics, Novel therapeutics for Diseases and Molecular Medicine," says Manjunath, Director/R&D Head.
Our strength lies in developing fully indigenous biological reagents for Biological research. This has resulted into benefiting end customers in terms of cost-effectiveness, accessibility, shorter lead time and better customer support, says Dinesh, Director Business Operations.
To ensure the quality of its products, Denovo Biolabs implemented an internal quality management system and adopted international quality standard such as ISO9001-2015. The company has contrived innovative services in the major divisions’ i.e. Preclinical/ clinical sample Analysis, Gene & Protein, Antibody Development, Conjugation/Labelling, Toxicology & Efficacy Studies, Cell-Based Assays, Drug Pharmacopeia studies, etc. To measure up the requisites as per the genre, Denovo Biolabs develops and manufactures indigenous PK ELISA Kits, immunogenicity ELISA kits, Assay reagents, Recombinant proteins, Cytokine Kits, and other such solutions. Currently, the company has a team of experienced doctors, Ph.D. holders and master degree holders.
Denovo Biolabs is marketing the products& services in the domestic and international market through direct to clients, distributors and OEM channels. In this direction, Denovo Biolabs is exporting products to the USA, Europe, Russia, and South Asian markets. This has helped the company to make greater presence in the overseas market. “The company has plans to engage with new potential business opportunities through biopartnering and will make an attempt to explore to the most possible extent,” Babulal says.
The Setbacks Encountered
Despite the fact that the company is backed by great authorities, it had to put up with various ups and downs in their venture.
Dinesh Kumar Saini, Director - Business Operations & Manjunath Devaramani, Director & R&D Head
One of the major challenges was to develop products and services that are highly operationally, technologically challenging and yet portrays sophistication. This gave rise to further complications of modeling cost-effective products and quality is definitely not easy to be borne and of course financial, logistical, manpower and administrative challenges were always popping in the background. But, the experience of the team coupled with the suggestions of the advisory board supported the start-up to overcome these challenges and make their way forward.
Denovo Biolabs recognized as “Emerging company of the year 2018” in the Biopharma sector By Govt. of Karnataka
Awards & Recognitions
For its quality products, services and innovative research, Denovo Biolabs has been accorded with “Emerging company of the year 2018” in the Biopharma sector By Govt. of Karnataka, “Enterprising startup” award by Govt. of Karnataka and also received significant grants from the “Elevate-100” scheme for developing point of care device for human diagnostics in 2017. Denovo Biolabs is also “The Big Pitch” winner 2017 which was organized by RBL bank and 1Crowd.. Denovo Biolabs also featured on “DD national” channel under “start-up India” in their programme called “AAP KI BAAT”. Denovo Biolabs was selected by Govt. of Karnataka, to showcase their capabilities at the “BIO Conclave” held in Philadelphia, USA in June 2019.
The Growth and Future Plans
Established in India, the company has already created a significant stance in the international platform. It has been delivering its products and services to clients worldwide.
Denovo Biolabs has arranged for itself a welldefined prospective. With its distinctive innovations, it aspires to turn out fruitful ROI for all its investors. The company had achieved its break-even in second year of its operations. It is focusing on expanding its infrastructure and polish off all the ongoing projects to meet the future demands of the industry.
The business development team is continuously expanding their reach to domestic and international customers through OEM and distributors and have added significant number of customers to their portfolio. Denovo R & D focuses on the development of advanced technologies for point of care device and have made significant progress in the direction to develop biological reagents and their characterization for proof of concept. The Research and development in therapeutic area also have made an up move progress, where they have successfully identified lead molecules for non-antibody drug molecules and tested them in invitro assays. The results are encouraging and have to be further characterized for efficacy and safety.
They are continuously engaging with academic and industrial institutions collaboration to strengthen research and development for better socio-economics.
“We have an innovative product pipeline for the future. Wishing to increase our capacity by 10 folds, we intend to develop a non-antibody-based drug that can be of great help to the people in the healthcare industry,” Dinesh, concludes.
