Ajay Piramal (right), chairman of the Piramal group, with Swati Piramal, director (strategic alliances and communications), in Mumbai on Tuesday. (PTI)

Mumbai, March 11: Piramal Life Sciences, the demerged research arm of Nicholas Piramal India Ltd (NPIL), could induct a strategic or a financial investor within a year of its listing.

The strategic investor could be a foreign company operating in the same space, said Ajay Piramal, chairman of the Piramal group, here today.

Piramal Life Sciences has been valued at $480-540 million by three brokerages — Lehmann Brothers, Kotak Securities and Enam — on the basis of the new chemical entities which have entered clinical trials.

The R&D company has 14 compounds in the pipeline, of which four are now undergoing clinical trials.

The company’s valuation will rise when more compounds enter this phase.

Piramal was speaking to reporters after the launch of its corporate identity. The group has chosen the Gyan Mudra as its new logo. It is a hand posture practised in yoga, meditation and dance.

NPIL will now be known as Piramal Healthcare, while group companies NPIL Laboratories and Diagnostics and Gujarat Glass will be known as Piramal Diagnostic Services and Piramal Glass, respectively.

The objective behind this exercise is to bring about a value-driven identity that unifies diverse companies within the group.

In August last year, NPIL decided to spin off its research activities into a separate company. Piramal Life Sciences is expected to get listed in June this year.

Piramal, however, added that the extent of equity dilution after the induction of a new investor would not be significant and could be less than 10 per cent. It is estimated that the company will launch its first drug by 2011.

Recently, the company entered into a second drug development agreement with Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) to develop and commercialise a select group of Lilly’s pre-clinical drug candidates that cover multiple therapeutic areas.