Apollo Hospitals & Saarum Innovations launch Sapien Biosciences

Hyderabad, September 23, 2013: Apollo Hospitals with Saarum Innovations, launched its joint venture ‘Sapien Biosciences’ today at Hyderabad to create a world-class bio-bank and personalized medicine company. The bio-bank will comprise of collections of high-quality, ethically-consented and anonymized human samples along with associated medical & sample-level data across various diseases e.g., cancer, cardiovascular and diabetes. This will enable cutting-edge life sciences research and support the discovery & development of novel biomarkers, diagnostics & personalized medicine applications. Sapien plans to collaborate with healthcare enterprises and drug discovery companies globally to study disease epidemiology, validate new diagnostics, identify new drug targets and evaluate new drugs.

Sapien has exclusive access to the entire Apollo network for its bio-banking needs but expects to partner with additional research-oriented hospitals and clinics for their personalized medicine and bio-banking needs. Further Sapien has entered into an alliance with Apollo Hospitals that allows Sapien to front-end Apollo’s personalized medicine initiatives. This allows Sapien to bring novel cutting-edge diagnostics to Apollo, either on its own or in collaboration with best-of-breed institutions world-wide thereby enabling world-class healthcare and improving patient outcomes.

Speaking on the occasion, Ms. Shobana Kamineni, Executive Director, New Initiatives, Apollo Hospitals, said, “This is a proud moment for us at Apollo to be a part of this landmark initiative in the history of Indian Health care. Apollo Hospitals has long had a vision of creating Asia’s largest bio-bank which is being realized in partnership with Saarum Innovations. Sapien will help fulfill our vision of delivering better clinical outcomes through bench-to-bedside innovation. This alliance is a further validation of Apollo’s commitment to research-driven health care.”

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Sreevatsa Natarajan, Co-founder & CEO, Sapien Biosciences said “Saarum Innovations is proud to be associated with a healthcare pioneer & leader like Apollo Hospitals. Apollo’s passion for world-class healthcare combined with Saarum Innovations’ proven research expertise will bridge healthcare & life-sciences and enable cutting-edge research & diagnostics applications.”

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Seemant Jauhari, CEO of AHERF said, “Apollo, through the Apollo Health Education & Research Foundation (AHERF), is spearheading a vibrant portfolio of innovative projects that will enable effective and affordable technologies for better treatment outcomes. Bio-banking & personalized medicine was one such initiative which is being realized with the launch of Sapien Biosciences.

Sapien Biosciences also announces the launch of its first & novel personalized medicine test,‘myPLA, which determines patients’ response to their blood-thinning medication and supports decision-making by their cardiologists to personalize therapy for better outcomes. This is the only test in India that combines both genetic and platelet function response to enable tailored anti-platelet therapy for each patient.

Speaking on the occasion Dr. Jugnu Jain, Co-founder and CSO, Sapien Biosciences said “Sapien’s novel test offers more complete assessment of a patient’s platelet response than existing tests.

and enables informed clinical decision-making thus exemplifying Sapien’s approach to personalized medicine innovation.”

About Saarum Innovations : Saarum Innovations has beenset-up with the vision of utilizing human tissues, primary cells and stem cells to better understand disease biology, develop novel biomarkers and diagnostics, discover novel drug targets and drugs therapeutics that translate into better clinical successes. Itis co-founded by a team of three seasoned life sciences R&D professionals,Sreevatsa Natarajan, Prithi Rajan and Jugnu Jain who collectively have over 60 years of global R&D experience.

Sapien Biosciences is managed by the Saarum Innovations team with Sreevatsa Natarajan as the Co-founder & CEO, Jugnu Jain as the Co-Founder & CSO, and Prithi Rajan as the Co-Founder & Executive Director.For more information about Sapien Biosciences, please refer www.sapienbio.com.

About Apollo Hospitals: In 1983, Dr Prathap C Reddy, the architect of Indian healthcare, launched the first corporate hospital in India. An integrated healthcare company, the Apollo Hospitals Group has over 8,500 beds across 50 hospitals, more than 1200 pharmacies and 100 diagnostic clinics, medical business process outsourcing services, health insurance services, and clinical research divisions with a focus on epidemiological studies, stem cell research and genetic research. To develop talent for the burgeoning need of superior healthcare delivery, the Apollo Hospitals Group has 11 nursing and hospital management colleges. These accomplishments have earned Apollo Hospitals Group accolades such as the Centre of Excellence from the Government of India and recognition from the Joint Commission International (seven of our hospitals are JCI accredited). In a rare honor, the Government of India issued a commemorative stamp in recognition of Apollo's contribution, the first for a health care organization. Apollo, for over 27 years, has continuously excelled and maintained leadership in medical innovation, world-class clinical services and cutting edge research. Our hospitals are consistently ranked amongst the best hospitals globally for advanced medical services. For more information visit www.apollohospitals.com