Pharmaceutical majors like Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's Lab, Wockhardt, Glenmark and Sun Pharma are now treading a careful patent litigation path in the US market to expand their generic business instead of the aggressive patent challenges they pursued until a few years ago.
Dr Reddy's has reached an out-of-court settlement to launch the Glaxo-patented Imitrex, a migraine drug that had annual sales of $878 million as of March 31, 2006, in the US. Experts estimate Dr Reddy's may not get more than $8-$15 million sales in 2009 since majority of sales revenue has to be given to GSK, for allowing the launch the authorised generic version.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Y V Reddy has been awarded an honorary fellowship by the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science for his contribution to the cause of the under-privileged.
Glenmark plans to start selling its anti-diarrhoea drug, Crofelemer, by the first-half of 2010 across the globe, except in North America, Europe, Japan and China, the company said. The confidence to sell the drug ahead of its rivals comes as the Crofelemer's original developer, Napo Pharmaceutical Inc, recently entered into a tie-up with a US-based drug maker, Salyx, for selling the drug in the US market, paving the way for Glenmark to sell it in the rest of the world.
Multinational drug manufacturers such as Pfizer and DSM are increasingly getting into contract manufacturing alliances with emerging bulk drug makers in the country, bypassing established players such as Ranbaxy and Dr Reddy's.
Two years after India entered the product patents regime, the year 2007 saw Indian drug firms striving to shed the copycat image and become innovators with emphasis on research activities even as they resisted moves to include more medicines under price control.
'We cannot have bodies putrefying in water.' 'This is a health hazard and it can create a very inflammatory situation.'
According to analysts, Indian drug makers are forging alliances with overseas companies such as CD Pharma, Gnosis SpA, Crawford Healthcare and Syrio Pharma to sell drugs for chronic and acute cases. According to analysts, Indian drug makers are forging alliances with overseas companies such as CD Pharma, Gnosis SpA, Crawford Healthcare and Syrio Pharma to sell drugs for chronic and acute cases.
Of the 30-share Sensex, 13 ended higher, while 17 led by Power Grid, Tata Steel, Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, NTPC, Tata Motors, Dr Reddy's, M&M, GAIL, Infosys and L&T finished lower, fell by up to 2.40 per cent
In a continuing trend for the previous two quarters, foreign currency fluctuations and mark-to- market losses are affecting profits of India's drug makers, despite increase in net sales ranging between 4.5 and 42 per cent for most of the firms during the three-month period.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was discharged early on Thursday morning from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where he underwent coronary angiography, as part of a series of heart-related tests."He has been discharged. He is hale and hearty and has gone back home," Dr K S Reddy, his personal physician, who is heading a multi-disciplinary medical team, said.The 76-year-old prime minister had undergone coronary angiography along with a series of other tests.
The recent pullout by ICICI Venture and Citigroup Venture from a three-year-old drug discovery partnership with Dr Reddy's Laboratories points to angel investors' growing aversion to risk in pharma and biotech firms, say experts.
Sales growth of generics drugs has dropped to 3.6 per cent in the 12 months ended September 2008 compared with 11.4 per cent growth a year earlier, according to the latest report of IMS Health, the leading provider of market intelligence to the global pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. However, sales by volume increased by 5.4 per cent in the US, reflecting declining prices and fewer blockbusters losing patent protection in 2008.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
The Ranbaxy sale marks the end of a phase for Indian pharma, with the need to evolve the next.
Indian Pharma majors are looking at different strategies to boost their global business.
The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has revised prices of 440 medicines. Around 300 medicines have seen price cuts, while the others have seen a hike, sources said. The extent of the revisions is not known as yet.
Ranbaxy Laboratories, Dr Reddy's, Nicholas Piramal and three other Indian drug companies cut their research costs by separating the units involved in developing new drugs, thereby addressing investor concerns on low operating margins.
The markets opened 47 points higher at 7,682.
The antiviral drug may cost around Rs 55,000 for an 11-dose course, or Rs 5,000 per injection -- much less than the price of imports from Bangladesh, reports Sohini Das.
While the private companies have to spend Rs 8-12 crore (Rs 80 to Rs 120 million) on building and other infrastructure for each school, the government would provide 30-50 acre land free of cost to the developers of these schools.
While companies continue to face regulatory pressure leading to higher costs, they see an uptick from the launch of differentiated and high-margin products
The 50-share NSE Nifty after moving between 10,374.30 and 10,307.30 settled flat at 10,348.75, up 6.45 points, or 0.06 per cent.
Replying to the debate on the motion of thanks for the Governor's address in the state legislative assembly, Dr Reddy said, "The incidents of bomb blasts at Mecca Masjid, Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat Eatery in Hyderabad were related to cross-border terrorism. Many innocent lives were lost in these incidents." "Al Qaeda, by clubbing the United States, Israel and India together unnecessarily, is targeting our country without any rhyme or reason," he said.
The move brings an additional 15 per cent of the retail medicine market worth over Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) under direct price control. All domestic companies, including drug majors like Ranbaxy, Cipla, Lupin and Dr Reddy's, have syrups and tonics in their product portfolio.
In a letter to the prime minister, he had demanded Dr Singh to visit Mudigonda village to console the families of the police firing victims.
Karmayog, a leading NGO which recently carried out a CSR rating of top 500 Indian companies, says that only two drug companies - Dr Reddy's and Lupin - have done work on this front. While the two firms scored three out of five, 30 other drug firms failed to perform satisfactorily. Nine of the companies, including leading ones such as Nicholas Piramal, Panacea and Glenmark did not score at all.
Cymbiotics, a US-based bio-pharmaceutical manufacturer, has entered into a joint in-licensing agreement with Elder Pharmaceuticals to manufacture and market three of its drugs for pain management, diabetes and dermatology in the Indian market.
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.
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.
Ranbaxy Laboratories, Dr Reddy's Laboratories and Sun Pharma's US subsidiary Caraco Pharmaceuticals are among the 13 generic manufacturers to get first generic approvals from the US Food and Drug Administration to manufacture and market generic versi
The R&D plan, focused on diseases affecting poor nations, is expected to be ready by 2008 and may benefit Indian drug firms and contract research organisations in a big way.
The resultant price increase was the cause of a surprise upward variation in the "drug and medicines" segment of the weekly wholesale price index of the ministry of commerce and Industry last week, it is learnt.
Analysts feel this decision is yet another example of big-ticket acquisitions turning sour for Indian pharma firms, as happened in the case of Dr Reddy's acquisition of Betapharm of Germany for Rs 2,250 crore (Rs 22.5 billion).
Even smaller companies like Torrent Pharma and Alembic file five to 10 ANDAs every year.
TCS, Bajaj Auto, Adani Ports and Cipla were the top gainers on BSE Sensex while Coal India, GAIL, Dr Reddy's and Infosys lost the most on the index.
An insider said that over the past decade or so Cipla has become immune to the exits of leaders. There have been no directional change in the long-term strategies.
The company has entered into a tie-up with the US-based FSC Laboratories as its authorised generic partner for FSC's hypertension medicine Isoptin SR (Verapamil SR) in the US.
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