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Reprocell: A Pioneer in Genomics Enhancing the Success Rate of Drug Discovery

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Lalith Kishore,President & CEO

Lalith Kishore

President & CEO

Indian pharmaceutical companies have moved up the evolution cycle to discover new drugs from merely producing them; tremendous credit to the advent of Patents Act. Renowned for having the World’s second highest number of USFDA-approved plants, scientific workforce with an innovative spirit and economical R&D costs, India has the potential to lead the pack with its high-end research services. While inventing new medicines is inspiring & exhilarating, it’s also an expensive & risky business that moves at a snail-pace. In fact, 90 percent of the potential medicines that enter clinical trials fail to gain regulatory approval, mainly due to the lack of understanding of the body’s specific biological processes that are connected to the disease.

This is where Clinical Genomics enters the picture as the prescription that can significantly accelerate the success rate of drug discovery. By enlightening the researchers about all the human genes & their functions, it ushers them through an alternative passage with a different drug research strategy & drug discovery development processes, which is much closer to the destination. Unfortunately, since Clinical Genomics is at a nascent stage in India, there is a serious lack of Indian representation in global genomics studies. Bridging this gap is Reprocell, which stands tall as the only company in the world that combines Stem cell capabilities, repository, bioinformatics and NGS to offer a comprehensive drug discovery platform.

With ISO 9001 & NABL certifications (in the process of obtaining CAP Accreditation), the company has positioned itself at the higher end of the spectrum with its prowess on cutting-edge technologies. The company is uniquely positioned to deliver and collaborate in the emerging fields of Cell Therapy, Gene Therapy, Gene Editing, Next Generation Sequencing, CART, 3D cell growth, Skin Models and live tissue assays for pre-clinical safety assessment. Reprocell’s Clinical Genomics services are also widely appreciated for making intelligent use of genome sequencing to perform patient diagnosis and direct therapy. “The key aim of this initiative from Reprocell India is to make the clinical genomics and DNA Sequencing based analysis more understandable for the patients and more actionable for the doctors,” delineates Lalith Kishore, CEO, Reprocell.

A Pioneer in the Truest Sense
Born in 2003 in Japan, the company acquired 1994-established BioServe in 2014 to address the dire need of making genetic testing more relevant to India. Reprocell is synonymous with biorepository sample supply & genotyping in the US. What singles it out as a reputed iPSC provider in the world is the fact that the company was at the forefront of iPSC reagents even before the first publications. Determined to give its best to make its offerings a class apart from the rest, Reprocell has now made its proprietary iPSC & primary cell line creation expertise available for India’s researchers as a service through its labs in Japan and US.

In fact, Reprocell is the first company in India to bring CRISPR Cas based Gene editing services through GenAhead Bio, Japan to the industries and academia. In association with Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelphia, US) and Kamineni Hospitals, Reprocell has established a biorepository to provide services for supply and storage of tissues, serum, plasma and DNA. This will ensure a great beginning for India’s representation in research leading to precision and personalised medicine. No wonder, Reprocell’s throne is ornamented with an astonishing list of clients, including large hospitals with research wings, CROs, almost all DBT, ICMR, ICAR, CSIR organizations in India, IITs, IISERs & other top universities and most of the top pharma companies & biopharma companies in the country, along with a significant number from US, Europe & Japan.

Dizzying Array of Offerings
Clinical genomics being an extremely new field in India, Reprocell takes a platform agnostic approach to genomics testing and uses the latest next generation sequencing technologies like Ion Torrent from Thermo Fisher and Illumina systems to generate
patient reports from advanced tests. These tests are performed for NIPT (Non Invasive Prenatal Testing) for Cancer and a variety of other conditions. This is a fast-changing technology and is being only recently used in clinical settings. Furthermore, Reprocell also offers genotyping services and largescale extraction services using Affymetrix, Sequenom & Fluidigm platforms, 3D manifolds for cell growth & skin models for research from Alvatex and tissue-based assays on live tissues from Biopta.

Reprocell excels at leveraging genetic information for the prediction and predisposition regarding the individual’s risk of developing disease or their likely response to treatment


Reprocell specializes at utilizing Genome Sequencing for the characterization and diagnosis of rare & inherited diseases, where the patient gets a better understanding of the disease rather than a simple yes/no answer. It also permits a better categorization & segmentation of different tumors, tumor types, phases and treatments. This will help in the evolution of systems that can use data from individuals’ tumours to guide treatment and realise the dream of precision medicine.

Reprocell also excels at leveraging genetic information for the prediction and predisposition regarding the individual’s risk of developing disease or their likely response to treatment. This can help in better disease management at clinics & centrally administered programs and can facilitate better health management for individuals. Reprocell facilitates its customers to check on the effect of the drug from a genomic perspective. “Researchers in drug discovery are interested in finding out which genes get switched on/switched off or over/under expressed. Our transcriptome analysis – control vs test would give them a good idea,” explains Dev Chandran, COO, Reprocell.

Geared-up to Make History Again
Reprocell is catering to an increasing number of clients who are interested in the development of a more specific/sensitive single point test as a mark of efficacy/end point determination. Its Genomic Testing service is also being leveraged by clients to evaluate effects long-term exposure, pharmaco kinetics, pharmacovigilance and post marketing surveillance. The company is also witnessing a keenness in the analysis & discovery of markers, since a novel biomarker can add tremendous value during a larger clinical trial.

Reprocell is about to make history again with its on-going research work in developing novel panels for use in sequencing-based diagnostics. Adding yet another feather to its cap, the company is working towards evolving a comprehensive microbiome solution both from an individual patient perspective as well as from a drug discovery perspective. Anticipating great opportunity in cell therapies, gene therapy, gene editing and tissue assays, Reprocell is aiming to be the top genomics testing company in India. The company endeavours to bring affordable Sequencing based Clinical genomics to India, starting with Clinical Genomics services for Prenatal Testing and Oncology. Currently experiencing a CAGR of 20 percent (which is quite impressive for a company of its size), the company is geared-up to metamorphose into a clinical genomics company in the next year and soar to greater heights.

Key Management:
Lalith Kishore, CEO
Lalith is an innovation mentor, TEDx speaker & a business leader with nearly two decades of experience across Drug Discovery Sciences, Genomic Sciences, Protein Sciences and Cell Technologies in India & US. He holds a strong record of technical ability, independently supporting key customers’ R&D programs, delivering ever-increasing revenue targets and handling large projects with strict deadline environments.

Dev Chandran, COO
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Services:
•Oligonucleotide synthesis at multiple scales starting from lab scale to cGMP grade clinical products
•Chemistries & speciality remedies for Oligo synthesis, gene therapy
•Chemicals and reagents for RNA synthesis & mRNA synthesis by transcription
•Microbial Identification as a service for pharma & biopharma
•Sanger sequencing as a service
•Illumina and Ion Torrent based Next Generation Sequencing Services
•Sequence analysis, expression analysis & target validation using bio-informatics platforms


Reprocell in Spotlight:
•Reprocell stands tall as the only company in the world that combines Stem cell capabilities, repository, bioinformatics and NGS to offer a comprehensive drug discovery platform.
•The company was at the forefront of iPSC reagents even before the first publications.
•Reprocell is the first company in India to bring CRISPR Cas based Gene editing services through GenAhead Bio, Japan to the industries and academia.
•Catering to large hospitals with research wings, CROs, almost all DBT, ICMR, ICAR, CSIR organizations in India, IITs, IISERs & other top universities and most of the top pharma companies & biopharma companies in the country, along with a significant number from US, Europe & Japan.
•Reprocell takes a platform agnostic approach to genomics testing and uses the latest next generation sequencing technologies.
•Reprocell is about to make history again with its on-going research work in developing novel panels for use in sequencing-based diagnostics.