Iceland's Actavis Pharma is in talks to acquire the pharma division of Pune-based Emcure Pharmaceuticals as part of its Indian business expansion plan.
Emcure is among the four Indian companies short-listed by Actavis for its proposed acquisition plan in India. The multinational company already has a strategic alliance with Emcure for sourcing products.
G R S Raghavan, country manager, Actavis Pharma India, told Business Standard that the company is seriously considering India for its future expansion programme.
"As part of this, we are looking at various options including strategic alliances with ideal industry partners as well as acquisitions," he said.
Raghavan said that Actavis does not believe in picking up minority stakes in companies and it will go only for full-scale acquisitions.
"We have short-listed four Indian companies for take-over and the negotiations are on with a few of them. This is part of our search for new investment opportunities in India," he added.
"Emcure's facility is already been approved by us for sourcing products for our global requirement. However, due to confidentiality reasons I cannot reveal more details on the talks now," he said.
"On the collaboration front, we will soon expand the product sourcing agreement with Emcure," Raghavan added.
Currently, as per the contract manufacturing agreement between Actavis and Emcure, the Pune-based company is manufacturing four products.
Actavis is planning to add two more products to be sourced from the Emcure facility. Emcure would manufacture all these products for Actavis for the US market.
According to sources in Emcure, the company has big plans for the biotech division. "There have been talks between us and Actavis on several aspects. We would not like to comment on the acquisition front at this point of time," sources said.
Early this year, Actavis had acquired the Bangalore-based contract research organization Lotus Lab for $20 million.
Actavis Pharma, which was established in 2004 in India, would look into strategic plans in India along with establishing new opportunities in sourcing active pharmaceutical ingredients finished dosage forms, formulation development, contract research, clinical trials and contract manufacture.
