Virtual Companies do they exist in Pharma????

Last week and till today I had bit hectic time in office and after our work was done was having chat with my colleague regarding the existence of virtual companies in both Pharma and biopharma domain. At this point of time what is like forming a virtual company, do we have any success stories of virtual pharma companies till date? How many existed before and after the dot com era? What are the ways these companies are able to get there venture funding?

2009 Good year for Roche :)

Roche CEO reported that they have done considerably well in year 2009, there drug Tamiflu is expected to generate more than $2.2 Billion in sales and after they acquired Genentech they have some more drugs to fill in their clinical pipeline.

For more information please click on the following link
http://in.reuters.com/article/rbssHealthcareNews/idINLDE5BJ06H20091220

Pharma Ware housing...........

Yesterday I was reading some newspaper about Next pharma going for Pharma ware housing in Germany, this concept has been existing in United States for such a long time and now this concept has taken its initial footsteps in India, I have been in touch with an architect who has been working on this type of concept for past one year in India and he told me that now Indian government is making provisions on its own side to make this pharma ware house concept a big success in the coming years :)



This week end will be updating about the series of Merger and Acquisitions happening in pharmaceutical industry.

Takeda and Pfizer New Alliance........

Today both Takeda and Pfizer Asia have announced that Takeda will promote its Diabetes pill Actos with Pfizer in republic of china, this alliance will be till 2020 and will help Takeda to access sales force 18 times than its own. This Diabetes drug Actos contributed to 26% of total revenue for Takeda i.e. ($2.2 billion) in global sales in the six months ended Sept. 30 and with access to Pfizer's 3000 strong sales force we will have double digit revenue in billion dollars for Takeda in coming financial year :).

Sanofi with Prayas for Indian Rural Market......

Sanofi Aventis India has recently initiated program called "Prayas" to capture Indian rural market, with this project at one hand Sanofi will try to sell its 15 generic products under its banner Hoechst. The drug categories to be included are anti- infection, cough & cold and pain management drugs on the other hand Prayas will also impart latest medical science updates to 100,000 general practitioners and specialists in rural areas, through regular medical workshops to be held by specialist doctors who will be hired by Sanofi. The company with this projects hopes to generate additional 50 crore INR by year 2010. For more information of this report please click on the following link

 http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/sanofi-aventis%5C-new-rural-initiative-to-push-generics/379236/

Talent Pool..........

Hi All,


I was listening to this now in Mc Kinsey Quarterly by Mr Emmanual, Principal- Heidrick and Struggles about talent hunt in China and I would appreciate if you people all also listen to this.

What I feel is at present this talent pool hunt is a major issue for all medium to big companies which are planning for huge investment in emerging markets.

Chaooooo :)

India Phama Update

India's one of the biggest generic pharmaceutical company Cipla has been charged by government agency ie,National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority for over pricing of drug  Ciprofloxacin and Doxycyclin.NPPA has asked the company to pay Rs 20.1 crore for Ciprofloxacin and Rs 1.1 lakh for Doxycycline.

For more information about the article go to following link
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/cipla-gets-nppa-noticeoverpricing-drugs/80176/on

Other News Update: Watson pharmaceutical has completely finished acquisition of Arrow pharma which also has generic version of Lipitor in its pipeline.
 

India Incorporation- Update I

I am back after a short hiatus, In the beginning of this week there have been lot more events happening in India and United states M&A market, India's own CIPLA is trying for a generic deal with either Pfizer or Takeda Japan , India advantage for both Pfizer and Takeda is that Pfizer's global competitor GSK has already signed deal with Dr Reddy's for 100 generic drug worldwide marketing deal and on the other had Takeda's Japanese market competitor Daichii had sometime back acquired India’s largest generic firm Ranbaxy, Now we have to wait and watch out of Uncle Sam or Japanese Samurai who is actually forming an alliance with CIPLA :)

China -Oppurtunity- Part II

Sometime back I had written a blog about China and south east Asia been favored by Big Pharma for their Research and Development destination and some big pharma’s like Novartis and Novo Nordisk investing heavily on their research collaboration in China and 3M investment in Singapore, Last week some reports stated that Merck Serono (Subsidiary of Merck KgA) is planning to invest Euro 130 Million for its research efforts in China and Roche has already started establishing its research center in Singapore, If we compare Pharma direct investment of China, Singapore and India, we stand no where? What shall be our next step to make India the next Biotech destination?

Novartis.........

Today I was reading an article about Novartis signing a 1Billion dollar deal with incyte for later two late stage cancer molecules. For past several months I have observed that Novartis like the other big giants has formed series of Partnership alliances with many medium and small size companies in cancer therapy segment and now as its largest Research and Development division in Asia id going to start soon in china, we may expect lot of drugs coming out in cancer segment to fill its drying pipeline within 2-3 years 

India Incorporation Updates

India Incorporation is aggressively moving in terms of Pharma Alliances, This month only we have two partnership alliances by India based drug discovery companies. first one is of Bayer crop science and GVK (Hyderabad based drug discovery company) which recently have formed partnership in search of active ingredient for crop protection and the other alliance is between India based drug discovery company Jubilant (Bangalore based) and Alabama university, where in this deal both Jubilant and Alabama university will be equally investing around $40 Million within 10 years span for co development of drugs for cancer therapy... I am waiting for more partnership deals from India Incorporation in the coming quarter Q1-2010 :)

Pfizer on move .......

I have been following Pfizer news before from my college final days way back to 2001...Now a days I have observed that as Big Pharma's pipelines are drying up they have started strengthening their generic arm, In India alone in these 4 years many major players have formed collaboration with generic companies they include GSK alliance with Dr Reddy's, Pfizer licences deal with Auribindo Pharma and Claris..........Pfizer as a company is has not only extending its licensing deals but venturing into acquisition in both pharma and Biopharmaceuticals segment. According to Pfizer’s communication Today, they have stated that they wishes to enter the Japanese regulated generic market by 2011...So now we have many more deals coming up from Pfizer in next quarter for its generic segments....Lets wait and watch :)

Biotech Updates .........

Yesterday after coming from office at morning 3:00 AM started reading some article published with associated press, In the report they mentioned that Biotechnology based and Pharma companies are going for Vaccine research for various therapeutic area, Some companies in Top 10 pharma group are very active in this rat race they include GSK which some 12 years back had just one vaccine marketed in United states and now has around 12 marketed vaccines, and also carrying out some 20 clinical trial for Vaccine in many therapeutic areas. In coming years I feel that GSK will be market leader in this domain.…… Some other companies like Johnson and Johnson and BMS have seriously started venturing into this segment. At the end How can we leave Pfizer, its one of the major reasons to acquire Wyeth was to assimilate Wyeth advance Vaccine research into its own system...None the less we have many established players in this domain they include Merck, Sanofi Aventis and Novartis.

My 100th Blog- Dedicated to Fred...............

Today I am very excited as it is my 100th Intellectual Drivers blog and I am dedicating this blog to Fred Hassan. Over the past 15 years Fred has been associated with many big Pharma deals, In his last assignment till last week he was CEO for Schering-Plough which later merged with Merck this year and was also in board of directors for Avon cosmetics, Now after his exit from Schering he has become the board of directors for Bausch and Lomb and has recently joined PE firm Warburg Pincus and for those of you who don’t know about this VC firm. I would like to mention that this VC firm has been investing heavily on health care sector for many years and has also invested in one very big KPO/BPO- WNS located in Bangalore, Mumbai and Gurgaon (listed in NYSE) which now employs more than 60-70 Analyst for its GSK offshore research centre in Gurgaon...........What ever may be the case. I won’t be surprised to hear in coming days that Fred Hassan has started his own Pharma Company :)

Bio Graveyard - Part II- Update

Sometime back I had written about some 15 companies as mentioned in Fierce pharma who went to bankruptcy and now in just a span of two weeks two companies have filed for bankruptcy one is Altus Pharmaceuticals based in east coast , near Boston with head count of 107 people, the company was thriving on its only growth hormone program and the other one to go down the drain is Iceland based company decode genetics which specialised in genetic studies and had three molecules in different phases of clinical trial. Out of which two were for heart attack and the other one was for arterial thrombosis……. Now Let us see how many spin of are vanishing like this????

BMS- Next company to watch.........

This year till Q3 eight major pharma giants were very active in terms of mergers and acquisition and in licensing deals in Biotechnology products they include GSK, Merck, Johnson and Johnson, Sanofi Aventis, Pfizer, Novartis, Abbott and BMS. Bristol Myers Squibb though had sufficient liquid cash reserves with itself but it did not go for any major billion dollar deal.....On the other hand it has divested some of its drug licences in middle east and today it announced that it is going to sell its stake in Mead Johnson Nutrition company which is into infant food (Last year revenue from this segment- $2.2 Million), BMS is now keen in moving into biotechnology domain with back up fund of around 4 to 6 Billion dollar. Now I am keeping my fingers crossed and waiting for the next big Billion dollar deal to happen by next Quarter :)….may be next billion dollar deal by BMS :)

Big Sharks new trends....

Today night I slept around 9PM-IST and then got up at 12AM- IST to read something......then was checking out NASDAQ stock values over all there was up positive trend but for NASDAQ Biotech there was negative trend......what does it suggest?? Is it that Biotech opportunities are dwindling???.....What ever is the case but there is always a new start-up rolling up with new technology every now and then.....and the recent trend is many major pharma companies are forming alliances with these start-ups for drug discovery and ligand based companies for Mab's development and screening as these big sharks have drastically reduced their research spending to just 17% of their over all yearly spending and have rather started focusing on strategic acquisition to fill their pipeline for next cancer blockbuster therapy :)

India ......will it be next Biotech Hub????????????????

Last week I read some article that Novartis is going to pull over its Analytical Research and Development from India and is shifting its facilities to China......Today at this hour as I am cooking Chilli chicken (Spicy Indian way) for my Sunday feast and listening to Radio Mirchi (India FM Station)...I am just thinking that in this one year there have been major Acquisition and formation of new licensing deals and establishment of major Research and development centres by Top 40 Pharma's in emerging markets like China and South East Asia compared to India.....As we look into the data available till date Novo Nordisk (Insulin -No1 Player), Novartis and others are investing heavily in China and South east Asia .....In India DBT(Government Biotech Agency) and some Big Indian firms are incubating biotech ventures but what all steps are we taking to make India Next Biotech Hub in Asia???...Is it that we will just talk about India Biotech hub every time rather than taking a step forward from our end to make this dream come true.

CRO's .....

During my initial college days I was fascinated by the terms Oracle clinical, SAS, clinical trials........I used to wonder if I could anytime be part of any clinical research organization so to fulfil my goal I did my certificate course in clinical research from Pune University in Jan 2008....I did that course to get an overview of clinical research in India....but did not join any CRO but became a Business development manager of my company........But after finishing that course last year from than on I have been following the trends in clinical trial industry in India .......Some analyst in some papers have recently predicted that in some years CRO business in India will be worth more than $ 50 Billion...........what ever may be the value in coming years but this pharma service industry is growing at the rate of more than 10% annually in India......What I have observed is in just a span of 20 years we have more than 100 big n small CRO's in India.....and the count is increasing day by day :)….Jai Hoo CRO’s

Pfizer........

Pfizer as a company has always fascinated me; while I was doing my B pharmacy summer internship in Organon (India subsidiary of Akzo Nobel) in 2000 that year Pfizer’s name was published in all the news papers as it had then acquired world’s second most giant Warner Lambert. Then after my B Pharmacy completion I was selected as sales representative for Pfizer East zone in India but i quit before my training was going to begin in Mumbai as later i went on to pursue my PG diploma in Bioinformatics but still Pfizer is my fascination....so later on till date I have been following Pfizer's news updates regularly....and what I have observed till date is that Pfizer from early 1950's to this time has been the most active company is merger's and acquisitions and also in giving pink slip's to employees to maintain its liquid cash flow...Yesterday the news was Pfizer from year 2005 to till date has given around 30, 000+ pink slips to its employees but this is not a very new phenomenon with this company as Pfizer after Every Big merger or acquisition has been carrying out this process of giving pink slips for past 40- 50 years.

Oral Insulins.....

Insulin was first derived and used some 87 years ago by Banting and MacLeod who later on were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in the year 1923. Then after 56 years Genentech ( Now part of Roche) one of the Pioneering Biopharmaceutical company of that era developed world’s first Human recombinant insulin whose production rights it later on sold to Eli Lilly in 1982, thus human insulin, or Humulin, becomes first recombinant DNA drug approved by FDA. Year 1985 saw the launch of Insulin pens, then later long acting insulin derivatives and Insulin inhalers....Last week India based Firm Biocon (Leading Biosimilar/Enzyme company) said that It is going to launch its oral insulin pill IN-105 in Indian market by next year and by 2011 worldwide.....Many have tried venturing into oral insulin therapy domain.…..But at this point the question which comes to my mind is will these Oral insulin pills be as effective as regular insulin injections???....Shall these drugs be blockbuster drugs in the coming years??

Market Watch-China-India and South east Asia ...

For the past two years I have observed that Top 30 Pharmaceutical companies are pumping heavily there cash in India, China and South east Asia region, Astra Zeneca has research centre in India for more than 15 years and in china like wise Novartis has one centre in Singapore for Malaria Research and has declared that it is going to pump around 1 Billion in China for establishment of its largest pharmaceutical research centre in Asia. Like wise Bristol Mayer Squibb had signed deal with Biocon last year and the Biopharma research group has started it's function in Bangalore this year and in Gurgaon where I have been working for sometime we have GSK Research centre and Merck clinical report division.....we can now think in the line that within 5 years Asia will be the hottest destination for Pharma and Biopharma research :)

Two vet players to watch...........

Sometime back Pfizer got approval of vaccine candidate for canine and the news is that German major Boehringer Ingelheim has recently acquired Fort Dodge Products from Pfizer. Ingelheim will acquire the Duramune line of vaccines for dogs with rest of the drugs in the line...........and Pfizer is shifting its focus on Animal genetics and bio pharmaceutical development for Animal health

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) ...........

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) therapy had been a major challenge for many pharmaceutical companies and research institutes not only in Unites states but also in India, According to WHO reports around 5 million people are affected world wide. At present steroids and some immunosuppressant are used for first line of treatment and some companies are targeting for protein based products too, Some of the companies working in this segment includes BioMarin and Roche and partner Biogen Idec, last month at one end news was that La Jolla pharmaceutical was forced to liquidate this august as its key lupus drug Riquent which was in Phase III failed in the key trial....and today the good news is that US based Human Genome Sciences (HGS) with is collaborator GSK has successfully developed lupus drug BLISS-76 which in combination with other drug had shown good results in Phase III trial....It is said that BLISS-76 will be first of its kind in this therapy segment.......

Biotech graveyard.................

Recently I was reading an article in Fierce Biotech site, It had listed down around 16 companies which went for liquidation for reasons ranging from poor clinical data to investors not bailing out.........Most of the companies which went into so called Biotech graveyard rather were focusing on host of metabolic, pain and blood related area's.....Those were the days in early 70's and 80's when maximum amount of work had been carried out in metabolic disorders, then cardiovascular and pain .......Now what I have observed is there is lot MAb race happening not only in United states and across the globe, so what I feel is these innovative companies before rolling out should do their further SWOT in specific therapeutic area they want to venture...How much money they will be able to get from market so that they are able to sustain themselves till Phase III studies ......what do u say about this?

Biotech Boom or Curse

I had gone out for a long vacation this time of year for Diwali and Kali Pujo(Both Indian festival) and then had been to Santiniketan (Rabindranath founded Vishwa Bharti University there in early 1900's)......So feeling fresh and back to Business development......Yesterday was going through the pharma updates in various papers....Again this quarter GSK has again become active in the cancer domain and lot of small and medium size licensing happening again in this anti cancer biologics domain.....What took me by surprise at one end Roche is planning to hire 70 scientist for its NJ campus for Arthritis research and around 2-3 months before it had given pink slips to around 300 people in its west coast California based research center including scientists and technicians......Has Biotechnology become Boom or Curse for people?

Biotech Boom

Year 2000 every nook and corner the news was the next happening thing after green and white revolution was going to be genome revolution though this think never happened in last 9 years but the recent trends are giving me lot positive vibes regarding biotechnology being the happening things, If we just review the pipeline for Top 20 Global Pharma we observe that most of them have started filling their pipeline with Mab (Monoclonal antibody production) or peptide development, Assay development etc etc........what is your opinion about it ?........

Last Quarter................Biggest Deal.................

Yesterday Abbott Lab shares were up in the wall street as it had finally closed the deal to acquire Solvey Pharamaceutical (Belgium) for a whopping $6.6 billion deal, Abbott with this deal will acquire Solvay’s cholesterol drugs (Trilipix and Tricor) Market analyst report that Abbott will raise its sales to $3 billion in this particular portfolio by this coming year, Last quarter what we missed is that Abbott also went to acquire two medical devices companies one is Evalve Inc which is into cardiac valve development, deal size $410 Million and then Visiogen Inc (Eye treatment)- deal size $440 Million......first quarter of this year it also went to close a deal worth $2.2 billion when is acquired Advance medical optic (lens maker).....the thing to observe is these new innovation companies which Abbott went into acquire this year....will they help in to sustain its brand image and be the market leader which it has been in medical devices area for so long?

Australasia................

How many of us in India know that Australia is home to one of the largest phrma companies which ranks in top 35 in terms of healthcare revenue....how many of us know about CSl which is also developing its own H1N1 vaccine.......Today the headline is that Sanofi, Merck , Pfizer and Glaxosmithkline are expected to bid for Australia's own iNova Pharmaceuticals which is into Over ther counter and prescription drugs. The deal is going to be worth $816 Million........

Biotech Spin......................

In the late 90s and early 2000 many biotechnology startup started blooming up in New jersey, Massachusetts, Seattle, Bay area and in southern California in United States, likewise the same trend was observed in Europe in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Copenhagen and Cambridge area in United kingdom....at that time human genome sequencing was at peak and every where around the world Biotechnology was talk of globe, it was said that Biotechnology was going to be the next boom.......The question which arise in my mind is did this boom ever happened? Out of the 100 startups at that time, how many are still there or at the verge of existence......For most they had venture and angle investor backup but after 2005 those sources either backed off or they went into bankruptcy.....So now the only mantra of survival for these firms is to have their own money and stand alone in this not so happening biotechnology boom.......How many companies like this are existing or rather surviving?

3M...Name says it all .....................

I have read a lot about 3M for past many years, 3M was and still is a leading innovative company in United states and one of the best places to work :) ....Today 3M in its press release mentioned that Its health care business is fastest growing by sales thus it is planning to heavily invest on products related to skin, wound healing and other infection prevention, the good news is 3M is going to start producing N 95 face masks at its Singapore facility in Asia by coming April, Spokes person from 3M said that it is planning to produce around 180 million masks annually to tap to the increasing global demand for N95 cap after H1N1 flu.........Waiting for the time when 3M is going to establish its India research center.

H1N1 News Update

Many Big pharma's like Sanofi, Baxter and GSK have signed contracts to supply H1N1 vaccines to Governments around the world. According to reports published in Bloomberg today GlaxoSmithKline has till now received 22 government orders for pandemic swine flu vaccine (Totaling 440 Million shots) from various government bodies and agencies. Now the race has just begun........Major phrama have already bagged the big deals but I am waiting for Indian companies to join the race as some time back I had published that many Indian companies like Cadilla and Panacea have already started working on development of their own H1N1 vaccine for supply to Indian government.

Pharma headlines...................

Today the Pharma headlines were………………

* French company Sanofi-Aventis, planning to launch a generic version of its own anti clotting blockbuster known commonly as Plavix, thereby helping it to combat the copycat drugs approved by European regulatory authorities.....

* On the Other hand Sandoz (Generic arm of Novartis) has got approval for its Biosimilar for Somatropin in Japanese market and according to company releases it is going to launch 10 generic drugs every year in Japanese market in the coming decade.....After Novartis I am expecting more news from GSK's generic arm.

* For the past 2 Quarter we have seen major M&A activity from Japanese end. Recently Koreans have been into many small size M&A activity , Today Arigene Co., Ltd. From south korea which is into related medical equipments business announced that it is planning to acquire Trimeris, Inc, USA, which is into viral infection treatment, Its drug FUZEON® a new class of anti-HIV drugs called fusion inhibitors, is already approved in U.S., Canada and European Union. The overall deal is for $81 Million. There is lot more M&A going to happen at Asian front :)

I am back with more pharma news :)

For past one week I had very busy schedule so was not able to blog for a while but now I am back with bang....Last week there had been many M&A in biopharma as well as pharma sector, though there were many small as well as big deals like Sanofi Aventis going for 1Billion mega deal for Fovea Pharmaceuticals, Google venturing into its first biotech investment in Monoclonal antibodies production and series on companies announcing there their quarter reports and conferences being scheduled.......CRO's around the world going for mergers and collaboration.....there is lot happening and this coming quarter I am waiting for more news from Bristol Mayer squib and Japanese giants :)

Veterinary Portfolio......

Sometime back news was that Merck is planning to disinvest its animal healthcare which it had acquired from Schering- plough corporation deal last year and today Pfizer announced that it is planning to disinvest its animal health assets to Boehringer Ingelheim, these assets it acquired after Wyeth acquisition last year. With this deal Boehringer will be acquiring manufacturing facilities in in US and Canada. The deal includes acquisition of IP related to Wyeth Fort Dodge Animal Health portfolio which includes cattle and small animal vaccines with other some animal health pharmaceuticals. Till now two of the big giants have considered dis investing part of their veterinary product line, what’s next in this segment?

Healthcare-Movers & Shakers

Fierce biotech has recently published report about movers and shakers of health care sector; these include blogger, doctors, business professionals and politician who represent the present and future of health care in United States

David Brailer, MD, PhD- Chairman, Health Evolution Partners

Mark Chassin-President of The Joint Commission

Dan Drawbaugh- Chief Information Officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Atul Gawande-Surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital; staff writer for New Yorker magazine

Karen Ignagni-President and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)

Paul Levy-President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

David Rosenman, MD-Director of the Mayo Clinic's innovation curriculum

Rick Scott-Entrepreneur; former hospital executive

Kathleen Sebelius-Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; former governor of Kansas

For more insight please click into the following link
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/special-reports/9-people-watch healthcare?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Latest Deals :)

During this recession there has been series of Merger, acquisition and licensing happening in the field of cancer therapy not only in United states, Europe but also in countries like North Korea who are making their presence felt in the global market, companies like PharmAbcine are into monoclonal antibody production and have in recent past raised money worth $6 Million for their research, At the other end there are some companies such as Anthera which are going for IPO worth $70 Million.....the recent trend which has been observed is that companies are going for cost effective M&A and licensing deals and there is no severe recession in number of deal activity in pharma..What is your say?

European commission.....

YEAR-2007-June 1: European commission came up with new European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use (EC 1907/2006) called REACH which stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances. According to these regulation Manufacturers and importers for chemicals are required to collect information on the properties of their chemical substances, for safe handling, and thus companies register their chemical safety information in a central database run by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki..................

YEAR-2009-Sep 15: European commission collaborates with European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations for promotion of new drug development. The funding is part of Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) which was formed in year 2007; the total IMI budget for the period 2008-2017 is around €2 billion. The first proposal for IMI was drafted on April 2008. Out of 134 proposals which were submitted to IMI last year, 15 papers were selected to receive a total of €246 million. Hope to have Commissions like this in India soon !

India born CMO targeting Uncle Sam ...............

In a span of 10 years this company has made its place as a leading CMO organization (Contract Manufacturing Outsourcing) from India. Dishman has already established itself as a preferred contract manufacturing partner by various pharmaceutical companies around the globe. Dishman, Ahmadabad based is one company to look for, In the beginning of year 2007 Dishman went on to acquire Swiss company which was into developing drug conjugates and their further production and then Solvay’s business unit thus establishing itself in European map and this year it has established its china operations and is in verge of starting its Japanese office and now it has decided to target Uncle Sam….. Good going for an Indian CMO...

Scandinavia & Netherlands........

For the past some years I have observed that lot of new biotechnology companies have been spinning of every year from universities in Scandinavia and Netherlands. Some of these companies are into life sciences instrumentation, few into specialized formulations such as nanotechnology and major companies are into Recombinant protein production from different strains and then their further down stream purification ......Now for past 2-3 years the trend has been that lot of these incubator and specialised companies are been acquired or rather they go into licensing deals or mile stone payment options with the big daddies such as Pfizer, Novartis, GSK, Roche and Astra's...... GSK is a good example for a company which has rather decreased its investment on Research and development and has shifted its focus on investing in strategic alliances and acquisition of these biopharmaceutical companies in Scandinavia.

French Pharma into lot Government contracts!!!!!

Sanofi Aventis which sometime back acquired Santha Biotech in India recently got contract United nations agency for pentavalent vaccine , the contract is worth $350 Million for year 2010-2012 and on the other end Sanofi Pasteur, the French drug makers anti-infective division, has signed an agreement with Brazil’s Butantan Institute to develop 15 million doses of A(H1N1) vaccine for Brazil government and it will also be able to supply additional 15 million doses of vaccine shipment with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance.

Made in India H1N1 Vaccine ..........

After H1N1 strain had hit the Indian shore some months back many Indian companies started working on development and production of Made in India vaccine for H1N1. The companies which are active in H1N1 vaccine development include Cadila pharmaceuticals, Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech and Panacea Biotech. Sometime back some of these companies also assured Government of India that the vaccine will be ready to hit market by September 2009 and will be safe and effective for the common man. What I think is that we the common mass should work together in hand in hand with these companies and our government to bring the vaccine from research lab to market as soon as possible :)

Global Pharma ..........Next Decade

Today morning was reading an article which said that there will be more demand for biological or rather biopharmaceutical compared to synthetic API in the coming decade. What I feel that there will be rise in the consumption of biological more in developed nations with respect to developing, emerging countries and third world nations and the big daddies will be acquiring many big generic giants in the emerging markets so that they can produce API's in cheaper rates. It is assumed that generic drug's market size is going to increase 8% annually.

After taking over automobiles.......Next target for Japanese companies .......Global Mergers in Pharma

Last year some reports stated that Japanese companies were the most aggressive player in global merger and acquisitions. In these many years we have seen that Japanese pharma companies have gone for global acquisition which include Takede acquiring Millenium, Eisai taking over MGI pharma, Hisamitsu Pharmaceuticals went into acquire Noven pharmaceutical, Diachii Sankyo acquiring one of the world's largest generic drug maker Ranbaxy in India. Some time back in mid July this year the news was that one more Japanese firm was there to bid for Solvey in Europe and Today at 6:30 AM EST- Sep 3, 2009 news stand main headline all over the world was that Dannipon Sumitomo which some time back started its North American operation has decided to buy out Sepracor for $2.6 billion. With this deal Danippon will be able expand its portfolio in global CNS segment. But the truth is United States is still considerd highest source of revenue for both European and Asian companies.

Federal Government New Stimulus...............

After health care stimulus package of $ 14 billion which was distributed through NIH to academics and research institutes all over United States, Today one more Stimulus fund worth $40 Million was allocated for Hospitals across United States in helping them fight Healthcare-Associates Infection (HAI’s) including MRSA, this fund will be distributed by Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The money will be used to establish or expand state and local efforts to reduce HAIs; with increase in use of disease surveillance systems that will help the local health workers to track HAIs, thereby leading to more hiring and training of public health workers who can promote HAI prevention efforts thus creating more job opportunities in state level. I hope we in India can implement something like this very soon :)

Obama Stimulus funding??????????????????

After Obama became the president of United states, his administration declared that they are going to provide stimulus funding worth $14 Billion for research in life sciences................Many institutes all over United states would have had applied but how many did really got benefited or in the process of getting the stimulus package..........Did the fund money reached the target audience who needed the most to accelerate their research?

Recession.........2009

From the beginning of 2009 there have been many major Merger and Acquisitions not only in pharmaceutical but also biopharmaceutical industry, the reason being the major shift of global market to fill their pipelines with different kind of Monoclonal antibodies for cancer therapy and biological for treatment of different kind of viral diseases..........The major players in this segment are GSK, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Gilead, Baxter, AstraZeneca to name a few.........We have many more major Mergers which are going to happen by Q1 of 2010.

Pfizer new developments......

Sweden has been hub for recombinant protein production and purification for more than decade, in places like Uppsala there are more than 50 big medium to small start-ups. Yesterday in some reports it was mentioned that Pfizer is said to invest $214.8 million (€150m) for its biotechnology facility in Strangnas (Sweden). The plant will be used to develop E.coli and yeast strains for recombinant protein production and the plant will also manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for Pfizer’s human growth hormone (HGH) drugs Somavert (pegvisomant) and Genotropin (somatropin [rDNA origin]. The plant is expected to be fully operational in 2011.

Medical Devices ..........latest Alliance

Affymetrix , leader in micro array technology and Beckman coulter, Inc (Market leader in automated instruments for molecular and cellular biology) have joined hands to expand there business to capture the global automated new generation molecular biology instruments market , Theses two already have captured 60 to 70% of the market in their respective segments, Its high time for companies like Biorad, Corbet lifesciences, promega, Agilent, Roche and few others to change their strategies and develop more advanced technologies to make their presence felt in the coming years.

This partnership will help Affymetrix expand its validated automated target preparation method which will be configured with Beckman liquid handling system as for last two decades Beckman has been leader in developing instruments for carrying out genotyping and gene expression assays.....Now some more alliances are awaited in the life science automated system market.

Is there saturation in cardiac segment ?

Cardiovascular segment used to be once a major profitable segment for many pharmaceutical companies. Is it still the lucrative segment or else the focus in now oncology????

As in recent past I have not seen much approval for drugs in this segment.

H1N1 Therapy Part 2....................

Medimmune Biotech arm of Astrazeneca got around $ 150 Million from US government for Swine flu treatment therapy out of which $ 90 million was for development of swine flu vaccine. Already reports state that AstraZeneca is testing the nasal-spray technology FluMist for a product which will help to tackle swine flu, also known as the H1N1 virus. This spray FluMist generated around $ 104 Million sales last year and it is expected to generate $ 2 to 2.5 Billion by 2009-2010. According to scientists the Advantage of FLuMist is that it contains weakened forms of a live virus thus may require a much lower dose to build up immunity. Astra spoke person said that it is sooner going to start the clinical trial for Nasal spray for H1N1 treatment.

Indian Pharma What's Next ??????????????

India has been catering to global pharma sector not only in terms on Drug discovery but also global clinical trials.....Now what is the next target for the global pharma's? What I have observed in recent past is global big daddies are strategically forming alliances with Indian generics so that they can produce there drugs in cheaper rate in India and the marketing the same drugs with high profit margin in developed and emerging markets. India is the next destination for global contract generic manufacturing :)

H1N1 Therapy :)

After H1N1 was declared as a pandemic disease, All over the world people are eagerly waiting for some therapeutic regime to tackle this Virus. Baxter sometime back announced that with its Vero cell production technology Baxter is able to complete production of its first ever commercial batches of H1N1 vaccine within 12 weeks after it received the first virus strain. At present Baxter is in discussion terms with the health authorities for the said vaccine’s marketing approval and then its distribution plan. According to the sources of the company clinical trials to evaluate safety of the vaccine will begin soon within this month.

Are KPO's Protecting themselves?

For the past 2 to 3 years I have seen a major development in service sector such as KPO's (Knowledge Process Outsourcing)......in a span of 1 year the number has gone from 50 to start-ups or even more......So the question which comes in my mind is are these KPO's actually protecting their business model or they have even started thinking in that level....Are these KPO's taking any initiative from their end?

Merck.......HIV Success.............

Last decade there was hue and cry for treatment of AIDS, Many of the large pharmaceutical companies went on to target CCR5 inhibitors but there was one young scientist in Merck who went against all odds and said that Merck scientist should focus on Integrase inhibitors, it was a risk at Merck's end as its competitors were working on other targets, Later on Merck's Integrase inhibitor drug Isentress, was approved in 2006 and it went on to become Merck's fastest growing medicine last quarter. Sales of the twice-a-day drug jumped 123% to $172 million in the second quarter at a time when the overall U.S. drug market may shrink for the first time in decades. On July 9, this year the drug was approved as a choice for patients who are just beginning treatment. It is been estimated that the Drug will generate around $2 billion of revenue by this year end .........

Pharmacogenomics................the trend has started...............

Pharamacogenomics is related to personalized medicine, many companies have started thinking in that way for bringing up personalized therapy. Amgen with its operations in Seattle and Cambridge, MA, has specially designed cancer drugs for specific genetic subgroups and it has performed clinical trial for this.

Amgen said that its marketed anti-tumour drug, panitumumab (Vectibix) controls tumour growth for a significantly longer time for colon cancer patients with a normal form of a gene called KRAS, compared to patients with more aggressive, mutated form of the gene. The study was carried out in a group of 1,100 patients.....This is just the beginning....We have more to watch :)

GSK ...................filling its Cancer Pipeline

GSK for the past 2 years is rapidly evolving its cancer pipeline, For the past 6 months I have observed that GSK has been part of many deal related to drug or compound screening for cancer target to their synthesis and successive clinical trials....GSK has diversified its cancer target portfolio......Yesterday GSK announced that it has signed a deal with Vernalis of UK, This deal is worth $ 200 Million in fees and milestone payment....The later will be responsible for Drug discovery and GSK will be taking care of the preclinical work. Later on if any IND’s are filed then GSK will have chance to licence this compound to anyone for clinical trials.

Biosimilars Next Move .........................

What do you think which therapeutic segment will be the major focus for Bio similar companies over the next 5 years? Earlier in the first part of 2000 the bio similar companies were majorly focused on diabetics segment and now they have diversified into Cancer therapy which includes Monoclonal antibody production.....In coming time we are going to see many players not only from Europe but also from India and China in this segment.......Infact several Indian companies have started producing in pilot scale and some have even launched their products such as Dr Reddy's Rituximab bio similar product.........And in 2 to 3 years these companies might think of launching these MAbs in regulated market.....I hope that Indian Bio similar companies are part of the bigger picture soon :)

Big Pharma - Next move as VC's

Sometime back I wrote an article about GSK helping the new start-ups by being VC or angel investor on its own, Novartis and Roche has been in this business of being VC for quite sometime, this year perhaps the company in which Novartis had invested, and it went onto acquire the company last month. Today the news was that Lilly has also entered into financing deals in pharmaceutical sector with $200 Million funds, I am waiting for Pfizer and Merck entry sooner by this year end.

Nycomed .......company to watch in next 10 years.....

Last month Nycomed was in news for Solvey Pharmaceutical's bid and this month again the news is that Nycomed has signed a deal with Sanofi and in this transaction the company got right to 20 branded generic drug's of Sanofi....This deal will help Nycomed to strengthen its position in major part of Europe, What I feel is there will be more such type of deals coming up in Europe soon, its just the beginning:)

Process Outsorcing Models .........................

In late 1990's a new term came into existence that was BPO(Business process outsourcing, Lakhs of people from age group 16 to 35 years became and are still part of this industry. These BPO’s cater to sales and marketing requirement of their specific clients....then in early 2000 came the term KPO(Knowledge process outsourcing).....these companies specialized in making client specific reports in business analytics, Investment research, competitive intelligence, Intellectual property, sales and marketing..... then in early 2002-03 the term LPO (legal process outsourcing) came into existence which focused to Intellectual property and prosecution related stuff…..And for the past two years I am hearing one more term RPO (Recruitment process outsourcing)......Asia has become out sourcing hub for all sort of core industries:)

Novartis new alliance.........................................

In early 40s to late 60s companies used to focus on antibacterial and antibiotics then 70's came the diabetics drugs then 80s and 90s was the era of AIDS drugs, early 2000 HINI drugs and now the focus is on New MAbs and Biopharma drugs for cancer therapy, Most of the top 10 companies in the world are spending around 15 to 20 % of there allocated research grants into cancer therapy. As estimated in some reports this segment is growing at the rate of 34% annually. After Pfizer and GSK's strategic mergers and agreements today Novratis has announced that it has entered into agreement with Forma Therapeutics (Headquarter in Cambridge and operations in North America and Asia), this deal will help Novartis to use Forma's expertise in cell based screening technology and chemistry based drug development. Already Forma has long time relation with Novartis as Novartis Option Fund has already invested around $4 million in March of 2008 on the later.

Animal Healthcare..........................

There have been series of M&A in animal healthcare, Last month in India there was acquisition of Wockhardt animal healthcare, In America some reports have stated that Pfizer is also planning to sell part of its animal business and likewise Merck was also going to sell its Animal healthcare division................Today's reports state that Sanofi Aventis in planning to acquire the animal division of Merck ...................Sanofi is trying hard to make its presence in animal healthcare :)

Amgen .................

Amgen yesterday reported that its profit has risen to 40% compared to Q1 of current fiscal year and the reason being massive restructuring in the organization which even lead to layoff of its employees. Amgen has already positioned itself in top 3 contenders in cancer therapy with its massive pipeline of different types of MAbs (Monoclonal antibodies) and today in Wall Street the news was that GSK is collaborating with Amgen in marketing Denosumab in Europe which is for Postmenopausal Osteoporosis, Amgen is going to receive around $120 Million from this deal. On the other hand this deal will strengthen GSK positions in global cancer therapy segment as its competitor Pfizer is rapidly expanding its portfolio in caner therapy segment.

Agilent Acquires Varian ............................

For those of us who worked in Analytical chemistry, QC and biopharmaceuticals upstream and downstream these two companies were our common lingos........Varian and HPLC columns you will find in every pharma and biotechnology companies in India....

Yesterday 27th July, 09, Agilent technologies declared that it is going to purchase Varian for a deal worth $1.5 Billion. This deal will help Agilent to penetrate Pharmaceutical and Biopharma market and help it in expanding it's portfolio for nuclear magnetic resonance, imaging, and vacuum technology markets.

While Agilent technologies is a leader in food safety and Varian on the other hand is a leader for energy industry, and has wide range of products for environmental analysis.

Both the companies head quarters are based in Palo Alto-based, While Varian employs some 3,600 people worldwide with revenue of $1 billion in fiscal 2008. The later company Agilent technologies have around 19,000 employees worldwide with revenue of nearly $5.8 billion in the same fiscal year.

Sanofi planing to acquire Shantha Biotech

Shantha Biotech is again in the market this time not for big companies looking for stakes but now the news is that Sanofi-Aventis is planning to acquire Shantha Biotech in a deal which is worth $748 Million. This deal will help out Sanofi-Aventis to expand its vaccine line of business in emerging markets as Shantha has its presence throughout Pacific, Africa and Latin America, and Sanofi is keen in developing its portfolio for vaccines for diseases which has afflicted these regions. These diseases include cholera, diphtheria and tetanus. As of now Shantha biotech is expected to generate revenue worth $90 Million by this year and has strong pipeline for vaccines which include vaccines for rotavirus, conjugated typhoid and human papillomavirus (HPV)……GSK is going to have good lot of money in its pocket as recently it had acquired 61% stakes in Shantha Biotech

Bristol Mayer Squibb first move in M&A this year...........................

After Big Daddies like Pfizer, Merck and GSK’s billion dollar Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)....I was awaiting for news from BMS (Bristol Mayer Squibb). For sometime news was that BMS has cash flow for around 4 Billion and was planning to acquire some company by this summer, Earlier the news was that BMS has interest in Cougar Biotechnology which was later acquired by Johnson and Johnson for $1 Billion and then today Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said it is buying out Medarex Inc. for $2.4 billion for filling its pipeline of experimental biological drugs and this deal will provide Bristol-Myers full ownership of the skin cancer drug ipilimumab, which it has jointly developed with Medarex.

Derma Next target..........................

The world dermatological market generated total sales revenues of over $20 Billion last year. Over the past few months there have been many M&A happening in this segment. Firstly the news was of GlaxoSmithKline acquisition of Stiefel Laboratories, for $2.9 billion in cash and secondly one of the major derma player Graceway pharmaceuticals a portfolio company of GTCR Golder Rauner has entered into an Acquisition and License Agreement with Pfizer by which the former will be acquiring worldwide commercial rights for three investigational dermatological molecules from Pfizer. Out of the three , two are used for treatment of oily skin and acne - an early stage Stearoyl CoA Desaturase 1 (SCD1) Inhibitor and a Cholesterol-Acyltransferase (ACAT) Inhibitor, both of which are in Phase II clinical trials and the last one is an Activin-Like Kinase 5 (ALK-5) Inhibitor, currently in early pre-clinical development stage.

Pfizer league of Top3 for cancer therapy by 2018

According to WHO report cancer will lead to death of more than 11.4 million people globally by year 2030 and some market reports state that revenue in this segment has crossed over to 11% from previous year which is worth $50 Billion.

At present Roche is market leader for cancer treatment globally, with a market share of 34.9% (equivalent to $13 Billion sales) in 2007, some other major players include Amgen, Sanofi-Aventis, Merck KgaA, Novartis, Schering-Plough and Eli Lilly.


Currently Pfizer is ranked in seventh position in cancer drug segment with annual sales of around $2.5 Billion, According to some sources it is said that Pfizer is planning to position itself in Top 3 by year 2018 as from some years Pfizer has started spending around 20 per cent of its annual research budget for developing novel cancer therapies and now it has around 20+ drugs in its cancer treatment pipeline out of which 8 are in Phase II clinical trials and 13 in Phase I clinical trials.

Big Pharma's hunting the generics.......................

Big pharma daddy's pipeline is drying up in the coming decades and beacuse of generic competion many large pharmaceuticals are loosing into their profit margins, so the stratergy both GSK and Pfizer are following is that they atr activeky hunting out for good profitable generic companies in the emerging market.

for sometime around GSK has been making headlines with many smaller and medium size generic and bio similar acquisition and now pfizer is rolling uo its sleeves and has started its stratergia acquisitions in the emerging markets such as Turkey in Middle east. Some reports have stated that Pfizer has announced that it wants to have generic drugs revenue to be more than 3 Biollion by year 2012.

Nycomed Big Move .................................

Nycomed is going for a big move it is planning to acquire Solvay pharmaceutical, this deal will boost Nycomed sales to more than $9 Billion and will help Nycomed to diversify their portfolio in gastrointestinal, CNS, and cardiac areas.

Nycomed after this deal can penetrate its operations in Europe and in the emerging markets such as India. Some reports say that Nycomed which is controlled by Nordic Capital and Credit Suisse Group AG is interested in selling its shares with Initial public offering later this year as IPO will help them to repay their investors and this deal will also help them move into league of bigger and diversified pharmaceutical company.

Japanese pharma on M&A move ............................

After Ranbaxy was acquired by Daichii Sankyo last year than this year again at perhaps same time another Japanese company Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical bought Miami-based Noven Pharmaceutical for $430 million. Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical is interested in expanding in the U.S., Hisamitsu agreed to pay $16.50 a share, a 38 percent premium on the company's 50-day close. Hisamitsu plans to make the company with specialization in hormone therapies to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Japanese firm, Today’s headline is that one more Japanese firm and Nycomed are in the early second round of an auction for all of Solvay's pharmaceuticals business.....this time we have Japanese in race with US and UK based companies in global M&A.

US Senate vote........for Biologicals

As mentioned by me in my earlier blog that Senator Ted kennedy wanted 13.5 years of IP protection for biological, everyone was waiting for this amendment. Yesterday the US senate Health, Education, Labour and Pensions Committee approved an amendment that will be protecting biotech innovator companies from bio similar competition for 12 years. The voting favoured--the biotech industry with a big win which was struggling to gain a long period of marketing protection.

The 12 years of data exclusivity will establish reasonable period and will ensure continuation of biomedical innovation and will provide the benefits of competition," said BIO President Jim Greenwood.

Strides Lab into M&A Activity..........

Strides labs(Bangalore) which is into manufacturing of sterile injectables and oral dosage formulations with global presence in Latin America, Africa, US, Southeast Asia and also has several manufacturing facilities overseas is interested in selling stakes of its branded-generics pharmaceutical company.

Potential investors may think of investing in the specialty pharma unit, which is focused on manufacturing of sterile injectables as one report states that the global injectable market is estimated to grow from USD 150 billion in year 2008 to USD 245 billion by 2012.

Recession again from back door..............................

Last weekend i had been for a small trip to Jaipur (Pink city of India), In the heart of the city near the choti chowpad area i saw a temple in which in front it was written temmple for "God of employment",I was surprised and then thought, Probably what we are expecting about good times to happen soon is not going to happen, it will take one year more for things to settle, As of now for the past one month i am hearing that people are made to quit there job all over US and things are likewise happening in india too :(

Last week majour surprise came from genetech end and in India many small companies are asking people to work without pay.....

I think we all have to watch and pray to "God of employement" so that people jobs are safe and secured till the next recession cycle which is going to happen soon :(

Cadila's New Venture .......................

Cadila Pharmaceuticals (India) yesterday announced that it is venturing With Novavax, Inc (United States). The new venture will be called as CPL Biologicals Pvt. Ltd, this company will focus into development, production of vaccines by using one of its own kind cutting-edge vaccine technology and will sell products like seasonal influenza vaccine, novel vaccines against dengue fever and chikungunya fever based on Novavax's virus-like-particle (VLP) vaccine technology and also will try to develop pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine in India which Novavax is developing in United States.

The company will thus join the league of vaccine production companies such as Serum institute of India and Bharat Immunological which are already provider for high quality affordable vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics by carrying out world-class research and innovative manufacturing process for current global health challenges.

New Biopharmaceutical Exclusivity Proposal……………….

For sometime there has been hue and cry from biopharmaceutical companies in United States regarding the extension of period of exclusivity for Biopharmaceutical drugs from 12 years to 14 years, this exclusivity will not only help these companies to protect them from Biosimilar drugs competition but will also give theses companies time to invest on development of new medicines.

Yesterday there was news that a senior democrat Mr. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate health committee, in United States proposed an extension of 13.5 years for these biopharmaceuticals drugs for their protection from biosimilar competition.

Under this proposal Biopharmaceuticals will be receiving nine years of protection, plus up to four-and-a-half additional years for new uses or pediatric studies.

US Stimulus package for Life Science VC's

According to Money Tree report of Price water Cooper house there was 33% decline in the funding for life sciences industry in Q4 of year 2008 and number of deals count also reduced to 185 deals which is 22% less from Q3 of 2008. After this huge economic melt down in Q3 of 2008, federal administration in United States has been planning for Stimulus package for life sciences industry based VC's. And yesterday a report was published about this stimulus package for life sciences industry based VC’s.

There are many criteria’s to be followed for applying for this stimulus package.

Each VC firm will be entitled to receive federal money based on the size of the funds that it manages and those VC firms are only eligible which are managing funds of more than $30 Million and have been operating their business for at least last 5 years.

The VC stimulus fund will be implemented by Department of the Treasury, the Department of Commerce, or another federal agency capable of managing the program.

Note: For this Program the federal government will not use its power to influence investment decisions made by VC firms which accept stimulus package. All investment decisions and strategies will be previewed by the general partners managing the government-backed firms.

India next Biotech Hub by Year 2020!!!!

Yesterday I was reading an article where it was written that Biotechnology revenue for India is going to reach to $2 Billion by year 2010, In India Department of Biotechnology (New Delhi) has taken many initiative for pooling up rich talent and provide platform for young budding entrepreneurs, Biocon (Bangalore based biotechnology company) also recently formed an alliance with Indian School Business (Hyderabad) and it was informed that Biocon is going to invest around $2 Million for developing new ventures and idea generation in the field of Biotechnology.


What we are not considering is that though we have fund allocation for start-ups but theses companies do need basic equipments for developing their Research and Development? Do we have companies in India which can supply used instruments or auction sites related to resale of the same?

This concept of reselling of used instruments is quite successful in United States and there are many companies which have developed in an around west coast in United states. Why don't we take initiative to develop this concept in India? These companies will not only support the development of more research companies but will lead to employment generation in our country where more than 10,000 Biotechnology graduates pass every year, let's strive to make India next Biotech Hub by year 2020 :)

Biocon Story...................................

Year-1980 (Bangalore- India): 5 people collaborated to start a company in a garage, out of the 5 there was one girl who had just finished her MS from Australia and was looking for better job opportunities in India, later on the company went on to be known globally as Biocon....and out of the 5 collaborators most of us know only about Kiran Shaw Majumdar who is face of Biocon to the global scenario.

What I like about this strong lady is that she is "Brand Equity" in herself, Kiran Shaw Majumdar later on also initiated Bio spectrum ( India’s Biotechnology Magazine), Bangalore Bio and bioinformatics centre in Bangalore and is also associated with many other things. She is also part of Forbes Top 100 most influential woman's global list.....Kudos to her...............

Glaxo emerging market portfolio...........

GSK is exploring in a big way in the emerging markets, firstly last month it signed an alliance with Dr Reddy's of India for marketing 100 branded products in the generic segment then secondly it went on to set up manufacturing plant in Singapore and china for production of H1N1 vaccine. Last but not the least it is venturing into Middle East market by buying Bristol-Myers Squibb's 11 branded generics drugs in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Libya and Yemen for $23.2 million.

Its time for Sanofi and Astrazeneca to rethink for their portfolio.......

Biocon Colloboration with Mylan Pharma

From past two months I was expecting Biocon to tie up for some sort of bio similar collaboration, I thought it was going to form alliance with any one of the top 5 pharmaceuticals in United States as posted by me in my blog on June 14th, 2009. But it went on to form alliance with Mylan Pharmaceuticals (third largest generic pharmaceutical company), now the next companies to watch are Intas Biopharmaceuticals and Nicholas Piramal :)

Big Daddies alliances with Generics.......

Recently a new trend has been observed in pharmaceutical Mergers & Acquisitions. Many big daddies like Pfizer and GSK are strategically forming alliances with generic companies in the emerging markets.

Sanofi aventis is also planning to form alliances with some big generic companies and venture into these niche markets.

I am waiting to hear news about BMS (Bristol Mayer Squibb) M&A activity in Eastern Europe, middle east and some Latin American countries.

DBT (Department of Biotechnology) .......let's praise for this initiative

Bharat Immunological and Biologicals Corporation Limited (BIBCOL) in association with DBT (Department of Biotechnology) of India is developing dispersible zinc tablets. The formulation is for children and infants. These tablets are being made in such a way that they disintegrate rapidly when mixed in a teaspoonful of clean water or expressed breast milk.

Clinical trails have been conducted and it has been clearly shown that Zinc treatment is a highly efficacious treatment in acute diarrhoea and those treated for 10 to 14 days also showed greater resistance to episodes of diarrhoea.

Best feature of the collaboration is that DBT (Department of biotechnology) of India is taking steps to popularize the product among various state health departments and these medicines will be supplied for free in states like Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Assam.

GSK .........filling its pipeline

GSK over the past one year has made several mega deals for Cancer treatment, Yesterday again it signed a new collaboration, in which it will utilize technology from Chroma therapeutics from UK. In this deal GSK will pay chroma $1 billion in fees, milestones and options. The money will be used to advance Chroma's CHR-2797 into a late-stage cancer study and to move further another compound CHR-2845 toward clinical proof-of-concept.

It is notable that with these series of M&A and collaboration, GSK is filling its pipeline for cancer treatment for the coming decades and will thus become one of the prominent player for cancer therapeutics domain.