With 40 million diabetic patients and an equal number of people estimated to be diabetic prone, India is emerging as a major market for blood glucose monitoring solutions.
With combined accumulated losses of around Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion), the new entity created by the merger of unlisted Kingfisher Airlines with Deccan Aviation will have many strengths, but its balance sheet will not be one of them.
The trigger: Like many Indian cities, Pune is bursting at its seams. A boom in IT and services has increased incomes, fuelling a real estate boom that is adding 27 million square foot of space every year. With new automobile units coming up around Pune, the city is exploding and traffic is at its worst.
In another setback to Big Pharma, US drug major Eli Lilly's blockbuster erectile dysfunction drug Cialis (generic name:Tadalafil) has failed to qualify for a product patent in India after the basic constituent of the medicine was found to be a known substance, developed and patented by Indian scientists 32 years ago.
Interestingly, the European Patent Office is yet to grant a patent for Maraviroc, citing insufficient data, sources said. These were the main reasons cited by the Indian Patent Office for rejecting the patent for the cancer drug Gleevec, which snowballed into a global patent battle between the Swiss drug major Novartis and the Indian government.
Suzlon Energy, one of the top five wind energy manufacturers in the world, plans to raise $500 million (Rs 2,000 crore) through the Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) route to fund its expansion plans.
Indiabulls Wholesale Services, the retail arm of Indiabulls Real Estate, has acquired Piramyd Retail, a company owned by the Ashok Piramal Group which runs 35 neighbourhood retail stores and seven lifestyle stores. Indiabulls Wholesale has acquired 63.92 per cent stake in Piramyd Retail at an enterprise value of around Rs 208 crore (Rs 2.08 billion), said sources close to the deal.
After consumer finance and real estate, the Indiabulls Group is set to step into the retail business. Indiabulls Wholesale Services Ltd, a subsidiary of listed firm Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd, will set up 30 hypermarkets across as many smaller cities in the country in the next 15 to 18 months with an outlay of Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion).
The drug regulatory agencies of India and Canada are planning to collaborate on improving the quality of drugs traded between the two countries, besides helping the industry in both the countries to tap the opportunities in the field of generic medicines and drug development.
The Indian pharmaceutical companies are involved in patent litigations of a mere 40 drugs, out of the 135 known patent litigation drugs in the US. This is despite the claims by major Indian players such as Ranbaxy and Dr Reddy's at having secured over 20 first to file status abbreviated new drug applications with the US Food and Drug Administration.
The UK retailer earned an EBITDA of 2.7 million in the year ended June 2007 on the back of 17 per cent growth in sales, said Welspun India director Akhil Jindal in Mumbai on Monday. Christy's, which was losing money, customers and market share when it was acquired by Welspun, has reversed the tide by winning back customers, adding new ones and expanding its reach by opening more shop-in-shops.
The company is demerging its new chemical entity research unit into a separate company to meet the demands of increased spend on research and development, and to insulate investors from the risks involved. According to the deal signed with Merck, NPIL will discover and develop new drugs for two selected targets provided by Merck in the area of cancer.
Generic drug sales in the US, that power the business of such leading Indian drug manufacturers as Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's, Sun Pharma, Lupin and Zydus Cadila, will face competition soon, as big US wholesalers decide to outsource their requirements from upcoming Indian manufacturers.
In August this year, ABN Amro Bank decided to renew the lease for its 3,100 sq ft office space at Nariman Point's Sakhar Bhavan, but the landlord dropped a bomshell by jacking up the rental to Rs 500 per sq ft.
NPIL had announced that it would team up with the French company to develop a drug for the epidemic about six months ago, following the spread of the disease, mainly in southern India and Maharashtra in the last two years. Currently, drugs are not available to effectively treat the disease and doctors in the country administer viral disease drugs such as paracetamol and other anti-biotics to check the infection.
India's largest biotechnology company Biocon is planning to tap the potential of biosimilars (generics or copycat versions of biotech drugs going off patent) in the regulated markets of the US and Europe, besides taking Insugen, its own version of insulin, to the global markets in a big way.
India is the fourth largest manufacturer of pharmaceutical products in the world and the 12th largest in value terms. India could emerge as the second largest producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), next to China, within two to five years, overtaking Italy, according to various estimates.
Retaining the senior management of acquired companies has been the cornerstone of the company's strategy, be it in case of Daewoo's commercial vehicle business in South Korea, the tea company Tetley or the steel maker Corus.
The cell phone is no longer just a communications device -- it has evolved into a lifestyle statement.
ONGC Videsh (OVL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), is eyeing more gas fields in Libya.
