Date:29/03/2005 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/03/29/stories/2005032902000200.htm

Back Glenmark, Shasun ink pact to develop drugs for US

Our Bureau

(From right) Mr Glenn Saldanha, Managing Director & CEO, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, with Mr N. Govindarajan, CEO, Shasun Chemicals and Drugs Ltd, and Mr S. Abhaya Kumar, Joint Managing Director,at a press conference in Mumbai on Monday. - Paul Noronha

Mumbai, March 28

GLENMARK Pharmaceuticals Ltd and Shasun Chemicals and Drugs Ltd have signed a pact for joint development, filing and marketing of 12 generic drugs for the US market.

The product list includes a mixture of off-patent and patent-protected molecules with cumulative annual sales in the US of about $8 billion.

Under the agreement, Shasun will develop and license to Glenmark 12 generic products.

Glenmark, in turn, will be responsible for filing the abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) and obtaining regulatory approval in the US market.

Upon approval, Glenmark's US subsidiary, Glenmark Pharmaceutical Inc, will be responsible for the marketing of the products while Shasun will be responsible for manufacture and supply.

Mr Glenn Saldanha, Managing Director and CEO of Glenmark, told newspersons that the intellectual property would be jointly owned and profits shared. Products under the agreement will be filed over a three-year period, with the first filing expected by 2005, he added.

He expects revenues of about $15 million from this deal by the end of 2007-08.

Commenting on the pricing pressures in the US market, he said that the margins were better than the domestic market. Besides, Glenmark was "starting from 0 base." The action has been hotting up in the US for Glenmark. It has completed filing six ANDAs till date and expects to file three more by May.

The company had also announced the purchase of two ANDAs from Clonmel Healthcare and recently signed two partnership agreements with US-based companies, Interpharm and Konec, for Naproxen and Nitroglycerin.

Glenmark has commenced marketing these generic products through its front-end in the US market and has already locked in contracts amounting to a market share in excess of 15 per cent of the US market for Naproxen. It expects to have at least five products in the market before March 2006.

Mr S. Abhaya Kumar, Joint Managing Director of Shasun, said: "Shasun has gone ahead with the forward integration by putting up the formulation plant at Pondicherry at an investment of Rs 40 crore, with the idea of providing a one-stop shop for outsourcing by any pharmaceutical company."