AstraZeneca India’s Balganesh to Head CSIR Project

Jacob P. Koshy | Mint | August 2, 2011

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India’s largest group of publicly funded research laboratories, has hired AstraZeneca India’s research and development (R&D) head, T. Balganesh, to head its open-source drug discovery (OSDD) project. While AstraZeneca India’s interests are largely in drug manufacturing, it has an R&D centre in Bangalore that is attempting to develop new drugs for tuberculosis and malaria.

Balganesh’s entry will, according to a senior CSIR official, help professionalize and accelerate future, potential clinical trials of prospective molecules. An internal CSIR communique viewed by Mint said Balganesh was appointed a distinguished scientist, OSDD, which will now be a separate entity with greater functional autonomy. The same senior CSIR official, who didn’t want to be identified, said Balganesh will head the entity.

“Generally, we hear of government scientists quitting for the corporate sector. This is something in the reverse, and this will give us the advantage of getting expertise from a corporate, R&D perspective,” said Zakir Thomas, project director, OSDD.