The Ken is launching a Southeast Asia edition soon. Join the waitlist to get early access

Learnings & Misgivings

The Advinus Decade: Inside the Tata Group’s expensive drug discovery flameout

Born 2005. Died 2017. Several hundred crores poorer, the Tata Group has finally pulled the plug on its ambitious drug discovery venture. What went wrong?

14/08/17

Seema Singh

No one has come out of this venture looking great—not Rashmi Barbhaiya, who resigned and returned to the US, and not the TATAs who shut down the Pune unit and laid off people

Both sides had good intentions, resources, and credentials but they couldn’t pull it off. Did the scaled-down big pharma model fail or did people run out of patience?  

Three years ago, the Piramals shut down the drug discovery unit. Every time such a closure happens, it sends a shiver down the small community's spine. Why even do such a risky venture in India?  

Aarin Capital's Ranjan Pai thinks too much money is chasing e-commerce in India and everyone would be better off if that money came into biotech. Will the exit he is looking for provide a proof that it’s worth doing it in India?

landscape-411712_1280.jpg

A decade is a long enough time in any business, however risky its premise or exploratory its process, to prove whether it’ll return value to its investors or not. This was evident last month when the news broke that the Tata group was selling Advinus Therapeutics to Eurofins Scientific, a contract research and manufacturing company in Luxembourg.

Read the full story. Create a free account.

Also read our exhaustive coverage about Future of Retail, Ride Sharing and Oyo

Or subscribe. Why? Let us explain.

Already Registered?

Related stories

More stories in /Business, /Reportage & /Science

See all in Reportage & Startups

Want to read this story for free right now? Just

Read the full story instantly.
Just enter your email address.

Also read our exhaustive coverage about Future of Retail, Ride Sharing and Oyo

Or subscribe. Why? Let us explain.

Or

By registering, you will be signed-up for an account which gives you access to a free story published once a week and archives of all our free stories. You will also receive a daily newsletter sent to your inbox. To unsubscribe, please visit the profile section in your account.

What you get

Access all free stories

244+ archived free stories, and all upcoming ones too.

Paid story summaries

Read an exclusive 200 word summary for all our paid stories.

Daily Newsletters

Our world-renowned emails, in your inbox, every day.

Or get full access to all our stories

About subscriptions

Already Registered? Login

Questions?

What is The Ken?

The Ken is a subscription-driven media site. We write one story a day (weekdays only). These stories have sharp, original insights on technology, business, science and healthcare from India.

Why do I have to sign up to read your stories?

Our stories are not free. Well, some select stories are. But, a significant part of what we write at The Ken is for subscribers only. We put in a lot of effort and resources in writing our stories and believe that you must pay for good journalism.
Hence, our three plans. 1) The annual membership
2) The free sign up
3) The recurring quarterly subscription

On journalism and why you should pay for it, if you haven’t already seen it, here’s a great explainer from John Oliver.

So, one must pay for journalism?

Yes.

How many stories will I get if I take an annual membership?

914+ stories.

And, in the free sign up?

Four stories every month.

Do I get a refund?

We allow you to sample our journalism for free before signing up, and after you do, we stand by its quality. But we do not offer refunds.

I am not getting my daily emails. Do I have to whitelist emails from The Ken?

An added benefit of your subscription (free/paid) are the daily personalised emails. These emails, at times, might end up in your spam/junk folder due to emojis, attachments or images. In case you’re not receiving these emails, it might help to whitelist us. If the problem still persists, write to us at [email protected].

Why am I unable to access the archives?

Full and unrestricted access to our archives is a feature of our annual membership.

My payment is not going through, what can I do?

Please write to us at [email protected] detailing the payment error or queries.

See all FAQs

    See all results for Ken

    No results found for Ken.