Mumbai: Look at these grim features. As of today, India has 3 crore diabetic patients. And it is estimated that by 2025, this number will double to 6 crore. Which means, one in every five Indians will be a diabetic soon.

And it is quite natural that pharmaceutical companies will take advantage of the lucrative insulin market in India, which is today valued at Rs 250 crore (the global insulin market is pegged at Rs 1,500 crore).

Now, by exporting Wosulin, Indian drug-maker Wockhardt is expected to take a major chunk of this plum pie - and eat it too. The Habil Khorakiwala-managed company recently made public its plans to manufacture recombinant human insulin in India, using an indigenous yeast-based technology - a feat applauded by all. More of it later.

Some bit of background With the number of diabetics in the country on the rise, the manufacture of insulin, the hormone associated with diabetes, is also witnessing a rise. Though bovine and porcine insulin were the first to be developed, their use carries risks because of the simple fact that they are protein foreign to the human body.

While both pig and cow insulin are similar enough to human insulin to allow the human body to make use of them, they also evoke certain levels of defensive response by the human body's immune systems (bovine, more than porcine). So while many people use, and will continue to use, bovine and porcine insulin, the best option is human insulin.

So far, most of the third world diabetics have depended on slaughter pancreas for their supply of bovine (cow) or porcine (pig) insulin. While human insulin is available in India the cost is a major deterrent to most insulin users.

The paradox is that so far the production of recombinant human insulin has been in the hands of only three companies worldwide. That, all three of these companies are based in the Western Hemisphere is significant because of the sheer number of diabetics in countries like India.

Diabetes for the Wockhardted When Wockhardt announced that they are not only going to manufacture insulin in India, but also manufacture it using indigenously developed, yeast-based technology, they received many a thump on the back. There were, of course, the usual self-congratulations.

In addition, sagely scientists nodded acknowledgement of a scientific feat achieved and our very own scientist president joining the ranks of their well-wishers. Indeed, that such technology may be developed, and be efficient enough that it may be put into production is every biotechnologist's quest.

Wosulin will be manufactured in Wockhardt's plant in Aurangabad and will be available within a few months. Clinical trials have been carried out already and Wockhardt says it took "28,000 man-hours, hundreds of crores of rupees and eight years" for them to be the first company in Asia to develop the technology and manufacture human insulin.

Scientific achievement notwithstanding, what does this mean to diabetic patients in India? The first visible advantage will be a more variety of human insulin available to consumers in the market. The second is the cost factor. Prices of Wosulin have been pegged at Rs 129, which is cheaper than the human insulin currently available in the market. The third is that the prices of the other insulin (other companies, bovine, porcine) will hopefully react to the pharmaceutical free-for-all by dropping to more competitive prices.