yesterday i had the opportunity to visit the biologics plant at dr. reddys...that's where we make the cancer medicine raditux...my guide was a chemical engineer from HBTI who had done his Masters in Chemical Engineering from some hot shot college from Mumbai...he had every intention of converting me to his faith in the 1 hour trip....with detailed explanation he took me through the whole process...and like a perfect teacher he kept asking me questions from time to time to make sure that i wasn't just nodding...he was delighted to find out that i was an engineer too but soon discovered that except for the two terms cation and anion, i was hearing most of the stuff for the first time...he was finding it tough to come down to my level to explain things but i must agree that he did try...the whole process starts with this small microbe that is found in the ovary of a Chinese hamster.. a Chinese mice must i say...he kept referring to them as some "** chow" eggs. these damn eggs are to be maintained as some really cool temperature...i guess some where close to -230 degree Celsius...these microbe are taken out using the "culture" process...the sample from the culture is fed into the "mounting" process...where these microbes are kept into fermenters and allowed to grow... they are exposed to the right kinda temperature and climatic conditions to produce the desired protein...the process takes 40 days and produces 200 L of solution...once ready...the stage is the de-mounting process...where the cleaning up of this solution happens... the scientists clean up the protiens to remove the waste content and other impurities...the bring it down to 20 L...where each litre has a certain density of protein present in it...the vial is now ready for forming and filling...the next stage is where this vial gets filled into the bottles and the kind of measures taken to maintain the cleanliness of these rooms is commendable....the rooms get classified as class A, B, C and D...depending on how many times the whole air in the room gets replenished...the storage was also commendable...the raditux is to be maintained at -2 to -8 degree Celsius at all times...so the store it in these cool stores where 5- 6 men can work along...while filling in trucks...they store it in these small bottles that has some spl. water frozen in it.
do u wanna guess, how much a dosage of raditux costs? 10 ml. for INR 39,999...which is a little cheaper than what the innovator medicines are available for....
Raditux continues to give hope for life to many a cancer patients...as our CEO Prasad says..."never forget that medicines are made not for profits but for the patients...and when u keep that in mind...profits never fail to come...
did i do justice to the effort the guy put in explaining me the whole stuff......nay...my grey cells are dying :-(...i am forgetting all the stuff all the time :-( is there a biologically generated protein for that?
PC
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