Small Uruguayan Biotech Start-up finds a Big Global Partner in India

 

Small Uruguayan Biotech Start-up finds a Big Global Partner in India

A Uruguayan biotech startup metaBIX Biotech has entered into an agreement with the Indian biotech company HiMedia Laboratories.

metaBIX was founded in 2022 by Laura Macció, its co-founder and CEO. 

It is a deep-tech startup using biotechnology and AI to predict diseases affecting animals and plants. Its technology detects disease before animals visibly become sick. Instead of taking samples from individual chickens or pigs, metaBIX has developed a small portable air-sampling device. An operator walks through a poultry shed, pig farm or similar facility for about 30 minutes. The device collects airborne dust particles carrying biological material. The sample then goes to a laboratory for molecular/PCR analysis. The resulting data are fed into metaBIX's software and AI models to identify pathogen levels and detect changes that could indicate an emerging outbreak. That gives farmers something resembling a biological early-warning radar. Traditional veterinary diagnosis often begins after animals become ill. metaBIX is trying to move the system from reactive diagnosis to predictive surveillance. Its technology has already detected more than 25 pathogens affecting poultry and pigs. 

metaBIX currently has four main product lines: Sentinel for animal-health surveillance, BioGuard for high-biosecurity environments, FoodGuard for food-industry monitoring, and Intelligence, its AI/data-analysis platform

Mumbai-based HiMedia Laboratories develops and manufactures microbiology and molecular-diagnostic products and has a commercial presence extending to more than 150 countries. 

The company’s  revenue is around 120 million dollars with exports of around 30 million. It is privately owned by the Warke family. A dozen members of the family control the business through their top positions in the company. 

Dr GM Warke, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director

Himedia manufactures  microbiological media through indigenous in-house R&D technology. It has established expertise across diverse domains of life sciences, including molecular biology, cell biology plant tissue culture, diagnostics, and laboratory chemicals, catering to the needs of fermentation, biopharmaceutical, and cell culture industries worldwide. 

Under the technology/data licensing arrangement, metaBIX will provide its technology, data and know-how, while HiMedia will use them to develop diagnostic products. The Uruguayan company will receive royalties from sales estimated to exceed US$40 million over seven years. The agreement is due to take effect in October 2026. 

The partnership did not happen overnight. metaBIX spent around 18 months developing the Indian market, carried out about 20 pilot projects in different parts of India and made several visits to the country before the agreement materialized.

What makes the agreement potentially significant is HiMedia's distribution reach. HiMedia products are used in more than 150 countries, so a technology originating in the tiny Uruguayan startup could potentially reach a global market through the Indian company.

HiMedia is reportedly exploring Uruguay as a possible base for expanding its presence in Latin America.

Uruguay has a small population of only around 3.5 million. The number of employees of metaBIX is also small, less than 20. 

This is not the first time that the little Uruguay has made big splash for Indian business.

Gabriel Rozman of Uruguay had established TCS in his country first and from there expanded it to the whole of Latin America with revenue of about a billion dollars. 

Here is my blog

https://businesswithlatinamerica.blogspot.com/2009/07/gabriel-rozman-uruguyan-wizard-of-tcs.html

Uruguayan architects Carlos Ott and Carlos Ponce de León designed TCS's spectacular Siruseri campus near Chennai—one of India's largest corporate IT campuses, spread over about 70 acres with around 5 million sq ft of built-up space and designed to accommodate tens of thousands of IT professionals.

My blog on this..

https://businesswithlatinamerica.blogspot.com/2015/01/uruguayan-touch-to-indian-tech.html