Drug to treat eye disease won't hit mkt before 2-3 yrs: Biocon

Biocon has initiated phase II/III study of QPI-1007 to treat non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), a rare eye disease in India. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Kiran Mazamdar Shaw, CMD of the company said Biocon had entered into researching the drug for this disease a year ago and that early trials have indicated a positive data. However, the drug won't enter the market before 2-3 years, she added.Below is the verbatim transcript of Kiran Mazumdar’s interview with CNBC-TV18's Latha Venkatesh and Reema Tendulkar..Latha: This is a little bit of a jargon for us, QPI-1007. Can you just explain what this deal means?A: We had entered into a research partnership over a year ago and this is a very new type of drug or a new class of drug called short interfering RNA based drugs and this particular molecule QRP-1007 is the code of the molecule under development and there is a global trial going on for a very rare eye disease called Non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). In a very technical way it is a non-ischemic neuropathy, optical neuropathy. But this is really about people going blind because your optic nerves start losing out.So, basically this is a drug that start comes and basically restores these neurons and these cells. Therefore it is a very important drug trial. India is one of the centres and the rest of the trials are being done globally. So, this is a very important drug trial for India because we have very large incidence of this particular eye disease and you can imagine peoples eye sight being restored is a great thing.Latha: What really investors will want to know before trade begins is what is the money in it for Biocon and when is it?A: Basically as you know clinical trials take time and this is a trial that I don't think this drug can enter the market in less than two or three years but the good news is that because it is a rare eye disease it is a pivotal trial and the regulators have basically allowed and expedited review process because if the drug shows early signs of working then basically this means that it can enter the market sooner than later. So, this is what it is about but more than anything else this is an exciting molecule and exciting new class of drug and we are amongst very early companies globally to be experimenting and developing such a drug and already this is a phase-III pivotal trial. So, you can understand that the early trials have indicated some very positive data.