Indian Innovators (7 page)

Initially, we were looking only at the domestic market, but we soon realized that Indian companies are almost always reluctant to experiment with new technologies. Even if they can see good economic potential, they usually wait till the technology is proven abroad. So, we decided to focus on international markets first and wait for the domestic market to mature.”

Artin filed nine Indian and foreign patents during this period. “Our patent lawyers did a good job, so we did not have any troubles with the patenting process,” Nelvin adds.

“By early 2010, we were 30-employee strong and needed even bigger space. Technopark decided that we no longer needed the incubation.”

Artin then rented a 6000 sq ft office within the Technopark complex. “Buoyed by the enthusiasm, we rapidly started scaling up and looked for a distributor for our products.” However, a big setback followed.

“We received a big order for 1,000 pieces, but it turned out to be a big mistake. Without doing a thorough background check, we started processing the order. We spent a huge amount of money on the hardware and manpower. However, when the order was completed, the buyer reneged on his promise and we were left with 1,000 customized pieces which could not be sold to anybody else. The suppliers refused to take back the parts and everything was now as good as scrap.

My father trusted me with all his savings to meet the working capital requirements. My mother also pitched in by selling some of her jewelry. The company managed to stay afloat, but we couldn’t pay the employees for several months. They cooperated and I cannot thank them in meager words for the confidence they showed in the company. We couldn’t even pay the office rent to Technopark during this time, but they too stood by us in this tough time.

Just when we started to lose hope, a friend connected me to an investor from the Middle East who saw the potential and immediately poured in the funds.” The funding came in toward the end of 2010.

In 2011, the World Bank chose Artin Dynamics as one of the 50 most innovative start-ups in the world.

The company has grown significantly since then, increasing its product portfolio under the brand name SPARA and appointing distributors in the UK, USA and Middle East, with plans to start operations in Australia soon.

The SPARA range includes specific power-management products for various devices. “For example, in an office, the water cooler would be used more frequently during the office hours, with low usage in the morning and peak usage around lunch time. However, even when water consumption reduces, the compressor may kick in regularly to maintain a certain water temperature. Say, it kicks in five times per hour during peak hours when more tap water needs to be cooled; reducing to two kick-ins per hour during non-peak hours and one per hour when it is idle. However, the compressor would not completely stop working unless you plug out the water cooler, which people rarely do. So, it will keep consuming power, even when cold drinking water is not required because there is nobody in office. A custom-made SPARA device can be installed to monitor the usage pattern of the water-cooler (via the number of times the compressor kicks in). Once the device learns the usage pattern, it will automatically cut off the power as required.”

Nelvin sums up his journey so far as difficult. “Our experiences show that westerners find it very difficult to trust the quality of products made in India. They have little faith in the R&D capabilities of Indian companies.

The bias can be so strong at times, that Indian companies may feel a better way of gaining customer confidence is to pretend that the technology was developed abroad by their subsidiaries.

The prejudice is all the more pronounced for a company coming out of Kerala, which is known more for its backwaters, scenic beauty and herbal treatments than for engineering. We had to hire a European PR agency to spruce up our image.”

Nelvin states that Artin’s future plans include “conquering the gaming and mobile telephony space with AI-based products. It is difficult to reveal anything more at this stage. For the moment, the focus is completely on SPARA. There are millions of computers across the world, and thus, a huge market for it. We are working with Intel to customize SPARA for their new processor, VPRO.

We also plan an AI-enabled ATM machine, which will have the ability to read checks. So, you can just take a check that your employer issued and get cash directly.”

Nitin Joshi

Non-intravenous Chemotherapy

Nitin Joshi lost his father when he was in class VII. His mother has been his pillar of strength. Born in Almora (Uttaranchal), Nitin was brought up in Haldwani, where he was always among the school toppers. Unfortunately for him, he could not clear the IIT-JEE and in 2002, landed up at the Kumaon Engineering College in Dwarhat, Almora.

“Since my ranking was not good enough to get me the much desired Computer Engineering course, I settled for Biochemical Engineering. I told myself that with a good standing in the first year, I would be able to switch to Computer Science the next year.”

Over the next two semesters, he discovered that his passion for Computer Engineering was more
“bhed-chaal
(herd mentality) than anything else, and that he was genuinely interested in Biochemical Engineering. Despite topping his class that year, he decided not to opt for the shift to Computer Science. Who would have known then that Computer Science’s loss would eventually prove to be Biochemical Engineering’s gain!

“At the end of my four-year engineering degree, I was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal by the university. I also secured AIR-31 at the competitive GATE exam (the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering is an entrance examination for admission into science and technology postgraduate programs in IITs and other Indian institutions and universities).”

Despite an outstanding academic record, Nitin did not apply to universities abroad, because getting a scholarship for a master’s program there would have been tough. Besides, his mother wanted him to be in India, as she would be all alone otherwise.

“I got an admission call from both IIT Kharagpur and IIT Bombay. I chose the latter, because I thought it was better to be in a big city. But unfortunately, I did not manage to get a scholarship at IIT Bombay.

I still went ahead with the decision. I thought I might manage to get the scholarship eventually, if a couple of people chose to drop out of the program.”

Fortunately for Nitin, two people dropped out by the time the session started and he obtained full scholarship for his MTech at the Biomedical Engineering Department.

“Biomedical engineering is very different from biochemical engineering that I had studied till that point of time. Biomedical engineering is more about human physiology, of which I had no idea when I started.

For my thesis, I chose to work with Prof Rinti Banerjee, who has a reputation for the quality of research pursued at her lab.” She has an MBBS and a PhD degree in biomedical engineering, and was a fellow at the Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California in San Francisco before joining IIT-B.

The credit for my initial pedagogy in physiology goes to Prof Banerjee, who has been a very able guide. I did not have any research experience before joining IIT, but gradually developed a knack for it. The research facilities at IIT were top notch and Prof Banerjee motivated me. Though I topped the MTech program with a CGPA of 9.8/10.0, my real joy was working independently at the lab.”

After completing the MTech program, Nitin had a few tentative offers from top universities in the US, including MIT, for their PhD program. However, he was very comfortable with the academic atmosphere at IIT and the infrastructure at his lab matched the best in the world. Eventually, he decided to continue work on his PhD at IIT-B, under the guidance of the same professor.

“During the MTech program, I had worked on engineering inhalable nanoparticles capable of delivering a single anti-cancer drug, an innovation for which I obtained a patent in 2008. In the PhD program, I continued my work on non-invasive, targeted anti-cancer drug delivery. I extended the scope to engineer nanoparticles capable of delivering two different drugs and allowing for controlled release.”

Nitin summarizes the status of current research in engineering nanoparticles for non-invasive anti-cancer drug delivery via the respiratory route. “Similar efforts have been attempted by several other research groups across the world, such as one at Rutgers University, where scientists synthesized inhalable silica nanoparticles. However, none of the nanoparticles synthesized so far have been commercialized, as serious problems have been found with each of them.

“Silica or polymer-based nanoparticles have been observed to induce a strong immune response, as they are alien substances for the body. In many cases, they even have very toxic side-effects. Most of them cause severe respiratory disorders, such as Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, which leave the patients gasping for breath. These foreign nanoparticles destroy pulmonary surfactants in the lungs, making it difficult for the lungs to contract.

Thus, our focus was to develop nanoparticles that are very similar to the naturally occurring pulmonary surfactants.”

Nitin shares more details about his research. “After exhausting several possibilities, we tried to synthesize the nanoparticles to carry drugs by using the lipids that exist naturally in our body. Each of these nanoparticles had the shape of the number ‘8’. Thus, it had two compartments, one for each drug and a diameter of about 100 nanometers.

While engineering the nanoparticle, the shape and size were as important as the material. If not engineered with the right aerodynamics, the nanoparticles could get exhaled or may not go inside the nostrils at all when inhaled.

The combination of cancer drugs that we used – Paclitaxel along with Curcumin – was an unconventional choice. In fact, my guide was initially not too happy with the choice of drugs. Paclitaxel is one of the most popular and potent anti-cancer drugs. Curcumin, on the other hand, is a naturally occurring phenol in turmeric, which is responsible for its yellow color. Several medicinal properties of turmeric have been known to Indians for ages and it is used extensively in traditional Indian medicine. Unfortunately, the results have not been documented anywhere. Many foreign researchers are now trying to document the medicinal properties of Indian herbs. It’s a pity that Indian researchers are yet to focus on their traditional knowledge.

My guide was of the view that pharmaceutical companies would not be interested in a product where the molecule employed is not widely accepted as a drug.

However, through my research, I had identified that Curcumin had excellent anti-cancer properties, and when used in combination with Paclitaxel, it increased the drug’s efficacy and suppressed its negative side effects.

I was thus able to convince her to try this combination. When we conducted trials much later, we discovered that the combination resulted in reducing the Paclitaxel dosage by 300 times.”

Another goal of the research was to ensure targeted delivery of the drug to only the cancer cells, so that healthy cells were not destroyed along with the cancer cells. Other researchers in the area have attempted several ways to achieve this, including engineering the delivery nanoparticle according to the shape and size of the blood vessel that delivers blood to the cancerous cells. Nitin’s approach was very different.

“It has been studied that the pH of cancer cells is 5-6, unlike that of healthy cells, which is around 7.4. Also, certain enzymes are found only in cancer cells. We used this information to design our drug delivery mechanism such that it released the drug only when the enzyme and pH conditions are met, ensuring that the drug is delivered only to the cancer cells. As a result, lower dosage of the drug is required to treat the cancer (thus reducing treatment costs) and the debilitating effects of chemotherapy are avoided.”

The next challenge was to incorporate controlled drug release. It was very important that the two drugs not be released simultaneously, but one after another, with a time difference of a few hours between them. The nanoparticle had to be specifically designed to ensure this. “Engineering the nanoparticle such that it could deliver all the desired results took us about two years,” shares Nitin.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, accounting for about 8 million deaths each year. Lung cancer causes the highest number of cancer-related deaths. Currently, India is home to 3 million cancer patients. There is an unusually high incidence of lung cancer among women in rural India, because the use of wooden and coal-based
chulhas
(stoves) for cooking leads to poor indoor air quality. In other demographics, high exposure to anti-fungal/pest control fumigants and high rate of smoking tobacco are primary reasons.

“This technology can make lung cancer treatment as simple as inhaling asthma medicine. In case of lung cancer, aerosols can be used to inhale drug-containing nanoparticles, which reach the lungs and specifically attack the lung cancer cells. For all other cancer types, these nanoparticles can be injected intravenously and would have the same selectivity and efficacy.”

In 2011, Nitin and his guide filed a product patent for the engineered lipid nanoparticles and a process patent for the targeted drug delivery. The process of filing the patent was supported by IIT.

Though the technology would be a big boon to lung cancer patients, the treatment cost is difficult to estimate with full accuracy as yet. The validation cycle for pharmaceutical products is long and several approvals are required before they can be commercialized.

“The costs can be accurately estimated only when the drug is ready to hit the market. However, it should be much cheaper than the best cancer treatment available today.”

Nitin was awarded at the International Conference on Nano Science and Technology (ICONSAT), Mumbai in 2010 for his research. This was followed by an award by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. In July 2011, with financial support from IIT, Nitin presented his research at the Gordon Research Conference, Maine, USA. He also showcased his work at the American Association for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Washington DC in October 2011. Nitin was featured on the 2012 TR35 India list, a list of most innovative Indians prepared by MIT Technology Review.

Nitin is also a trained classical singer and has been learning from an early age. After years of hiatus, he resumed training his vocal chords after getting into IIT.

Nitin is now continuing his research on nanoparticle – based targeted drug delivery as a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Medical College, USA and wishes to pursue an academic career.