Dr Reddy's bets on big biosimilar gains
Gunning for big fortunes from biosimilars, pharmaceutical major
Dr Reddy's Laboratories is looking to take its products to global markets in
two phases.
In the first phase, the drug maker will launch some of the
products already present in India and Europe. The second phase - beginning 2009
- could see some 4-5 new products hitting the global shelves, Reddy, a former
employee of Genentech, a highly respected biotech pioneering firm, said.
Dr Reddy's had said earlier it was developing eight biosimilar
products. It would launch one product every year.
While Reddy refused to go into the specifics of these products,
he said the company's focus is on oncology and auto-immune diseases. It was not
looking at insulins, erythropoietins, and interferons on which it was working
earlier, he added.
Reddy said the company is looking at further boosting the
capacity of the biologics development centre, currently spread over 36,000 sq
ft; work will also begin later this year on a new mammalian cell culture plant
which will be completed by 2009-end for $30 million, he added.
"While projections are going to be fraught with risks and
one should be prepared for the long haul. We see that biologics can even be
half the size of the company by 2015-2017," Reddy said.
The "great expectations" may not be misplaced if one
considers that half the new drugs in development are biological in nature
across the world while biopharmaceuticals worth about $60 billion are expected
to be off patent by 2010.
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