Bangalore, India, 29 April, 2010

Biocon's clinical research arm Clinigene, announced the appointment of Dr. Abhijit Barve as its Chief Operating Officer (COO) with effect from 1st May 2010. He takes over from the current COO Arvind Atignal, who will be retiring on April 30th.

Abhijit has over 15 years of global drug development experience covering preclinical, early and late stage clinical development, clinical operations, regulatory and safety functions. During this timeframe, he has filed at least a dozen IND applications and has led the team that successfully negotiated the original and expanded labeling for Vaprisol.

"We are delighted to welcome Abhijit to Biocon and we are confident that his global business and operational experience will add great value to Clinigene's ever evolving advancement in clinical development programs," said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon Limited. She also added "Dr Arvind Atignal, the outgoing COO, has played a key role in building Clinigene into a well recognized CRO on the global landscape."

Abhijit has extensively interacted with various divisions of the FDA and has also interacted with both EMEA and PMDA. His clinical trial experience spans across the globe, where he has successfully managed diverse global teams in a highly matrix organization across multiple therapeutic areas. He joined Fujisawa Research Institute of America as Asst. Medical Director and was Medical Director at Astellas Pharma (formerly Fujisawa) until 2008. In 2008, he joined Astellas US LLC as a Senior Director in the Business Development Group where he was responsible for strategic, financial and technical assessment of business opportunities in the areas of CNS, Pain and Oncology. In 2009, he returned to R&D as Global Development Project Leader accountable for overall development, timelines and budgets for CNS programs, the position he held until he left Astellas in 2010.

Abhijit trained at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College & Hospital and Seth G.S Medical College & KEM Hospital, Mumbai where he received his MBBS and MD degrees in 1992 and 1995, respectively. He subsequently received his PhD in Pharmacology from Dept. of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago in 1999 where he studied cardiovascular pharmacology of hemoglobin based oxygen carriers as therapeutic agents. In 2007, he received his MBA in Finance, Entrepreneurship and Strategy from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.

About Biocon Limited
Established in 1978, Biocon Limited (BSE code: 532523, NSE Id: BIOCON, ISIN Id: INE376G01013) is India's largest biotechnology company by revenue. The Group, promoted by Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, is a fully-integrated, innovation-driven healthcare enterprise with strategic focus on biopharmaceuticals and research services. Biocon's value chain traverses the entire length of discovery, development and commercialization of novel therapeutics. With successful initiatives in clinical development, bio-processing and global marketing, Biocon delivers products and solutions to partners and customers in approximately 75 countries across the globe. Many of these products have USFDA and EMEA acceptance. Biocon's robust product offering includes the world's first recombinant human insulin, INSUGEN(R) and India's first indigenously produced monoclonal antibody BIOMAb-EGFR(TM). For more information visit us at archive.biocon.com