Thursday, September 15 2005 17:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Biotech firm GangaGen's subsidiary in Canada has tied up with Elanco, a global research-based animal health company, to jointly develop and commercialize phage technology based products for the control of dangerous bacteria that pose problems for animal and human health.

Gangagen Life Sciences Inc. (GLSI), based at Ottawa in Canada, has signed a collaborative research, license and commercialization agreement with Elanco, a division of leading pharmaceutical corporation Eli Lilly and Company, to develop anti-bacterial products derived from bacteriophages.

The initial emphasis would be on control of E.coli 0157:H7 pathogen, which causes serious food borne illness in humans, for which GangaGen has developed a phage product that reduces the E.coli 0157:H burden and carried out pre-regulatory trials on cattle, GangaGen President and CEO J Ramachandran told reporters here.

He said there were no effective treatments now in the market to reduce bacterial pathogens in food animals prior to their slaughter. Some 25 billion pounds of beef had been recalled because of contamination in the last three years.

Ramachandran said GangaGen's would be the first phage product in the world and it would hit the market in 2007. The product that could be given to the cattle with the feed would eliminate E.coli two weeks before the slaughter. Trials so far on a small number of cattle had shown success and more trials would be conducted on a larger number of about 400 animals in Canada.

He said the future development costs and marketing would be undertaken by Elanco.

Ramachandran said product, initially to be produced in Canada and here in the long-run, could generate US$ 150 million even at the rate of 20 per cent penetration of the market.

He said GangaGen had raised US$ five million so far and was in the processing raising another US$ 6 to 8 million.

GangaGen, an R and D company, is focussed on the development of bacteriophage-based products for the prevention and treatment of bacterial infections, particularly infections that are resistant to antibiotics.

Elanco develops and markets products to improve the health and production of animals in more than 100 countries.