BIOTECH-BASED PRODUCTS ARE finally beginning to hit pharmacies in India. Less than three months after Dr Reddy’s Labs launched its Plermin (a cream that treats diabetic foot ulcers by stimulating growth of skin), another Hyderabad-based company, Bharat Biotech, has unveiled its own version of the cream, called REGEN-D. Except that the biotech start-up is calling it India’s first indigenously developed and manufactured “recombinant epidermal growth factor” (read: skin regenerating cream). While Plermin was licensed from yet another Hyderabad-based firm called Virchow Biotech, REGEN-D is the result of collaborative research between Bharat Biotech and the Delhi-based Institute of Genomics and Integrated Biology, part of the CSIR system. Plermin sells for Rs 1,100 and Rs 1,950 (for 7.5 gm and 15 gm tubes, respectively), and REGEN-D for diabetic foot is priced at Rs 1,000 for 7.5 gm. “There is no better product than this for diabetic foot ulcer at this point of time,” says Krishna M. Ella, Bharat Biotech’s CMD. If such biotech products find takers in the market, many more could follow.