Nicholas Piramal forges alliance for cancer, diabetes research

Nicholas Piramal India Ltd has started two basic research programmes to screen patient samples in the diabetes and cancer segments. Of late, the Mumbai-based company forged a cancer-related alliance with Chennai''s Apollo Hospitals Group for the molecular profiling of tumors. NPIL will do a blind study of the tumour samples provided by the hospital and compare the data with the hospital''s patient response to conventional therapy. Biomarkers could be an external substance or a feature in the human body that helps indicate a pattern in the patient''s response to treatment. A tool used for target identification, the biomarker technology is getting more refined over the years and it improves the chance of discovering a drug, observes a senior researcher with a clinical research organisation.