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Wednesday, August 1, 2001
A&M-Kingsville has partnership with drug industry
Pharmaceutical firms to donate money, laboratory equipment for use of students
By Jeremy Brown
Caller-Times

David Adame/Caller-Times

Apu Battacharya, a professor of chemistry at Texas A&M University-Kingsville with deep connections in the pharmaceutical industry, has helped create a program to give students industry-oriented training.

   KINGSVILLE - Apu Battacharya wants to stop bright students from leaving South Texas.
   Too often, he said, they head to bigger cities or other states looking for more opportunities, and South Texas winds up with a less educated, less affluent population.
   The way to reverse that pattern, and even to lure outsiders to South Texas, he said, is to improve area universities.
   To that end, Battacharya, a professor of chemistry at Texas A&M University-Kingsville with deep connections in the pharmaceutical industry, has helped create a new graduate level chemistry program that will give its students a more professional, industry-oriented training than traditional academic programs.
   "There are a lot of poor, bright students who do not have access to the outside world," he said. "I can make the biggest impact here."
   Although other universities collaborate with companies, this program is unique in that companies will share their research with university students in an attempt to solve a specific industrial problem, said John Grosso, associate director of process research and development at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.
   Potential profits
   Such partnerships between companies and universities have not developed before, Battacharya said, because the confidential nature of drug research and disagreements over potential profits have stood in the way.
   Battacharya, who has about 20 patents to his name and is best known for helping develop the anti-baldness drug Propecia from Proscar, a drug used to treat prostate problems. He worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 20 years before entering academia and was able to put together the program largely because of the friends and influence he had in the industry.
   The new program will begin this fall. For the first semester, it will train 10 master's students, but Battacharya says he expects it to expand to include more graduate students and, eventually, gifted undergraduates.
   Splitting of profits
   In the program, pharmaceutical companies will donate money and laboratory equipment to the university, which will research new drugs for the companies and, if a successful drug is discovered, split the profits evenly.
   "I think good quality research should be somewhere between industry and academia," he said. "Today, academic research is way too flexible. It is almost like you invent something and then you find a purpose for it."
   So far, Battacharya has lined up four companies to work with the university. Bristol Myers Squibb, where he worked before joining the A&M faculty, agreed earlier this summer to donate chemicals and laboratory equipment.
   Into a common pool
   Battacharya has also secured deals with Texas Biotechnology Corporation, Pharm-Eco Laboratories Inc. and Cambridge Major Laboratories Inc, although the specifics have not been ironed out yet.
   Battacharya said that all the money, chemicals and equipment will go into a common pool, so that, hypothetically, a cooling vat from Bristol Myers Squibb could be used to find a patent for Texas Biotechnology. But his students would not be allowed to share any research for one company with another company.
   The students will work on two to three problems at a time for each company. Battacharya said that because of the secrecy involved in drug research, he could not reveal what problems the students would be working to solve, but he noted that a single drug discovery could land the university millions of dollars.
   Doing such industrial research will improve the career prospects for his students, Battacharya said. Academic training tends to be theoretical and somewhat impractical, he said, and when companies hire recent graduates, they must give them additional industrial training.
   Attracting students
   "So a lot of the skills that we would normally teach when they would first come into a pharmaceutical company doing process research they would have already picked up while they were in school," Grosso said.
   Such opportunities will attract more students to the chemistry program, Battacharya said, and make the university more competitive.
   Now, about 90 percent of the chemistry graduate students are from South Texas. As the program grows more competitive, Battacharya said, he expects more outsiders to apply for admission, but he plans to keep a minimum of about 70 percent from the area.


Contact Jeremy Brown at 886-3746 or brownj@caller.com

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