Biocon is doing pretty well today, with the stock opening higher at Rs.444, going on to hit an intra day high at Rs.457.50 and currently hovers around the same levels.

The stock is seeing activity today on the back of its announcement yesterday – the company’s subsidiary, Syngene International has got extension for another 5 years for its its drug discovery and development collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb. No financial details were disclosed.

The collaboration with Bristol-Myers has been a long one and fruitful too, helping produce 6 drug candidates for further study, helping reduce the time and costs associated with advancing new compounds to first-in-human studies. The company has said that one drug candidate currently in clinical trials was discovered at BBRC and early nonclinical development work done at BBRC has enabled most of Bristol-Myers Squibb's small molecule assets to advance to later stages of development over the last five years. Also it was Bristol-Myers and Syngene which jointly developed the BBRC at Biocon Park in Bangalore, becoming Bristol-Myers Squibb's largest research and development center outside the United States. Thus with another five year extension it is hoped that the collaboration will help bring out more discoveries.