Dr Reddy's to move away from heart diseases, diabetes

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Limited is moving away from cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and diabetes to focus on new chemical entities (NCEs) related to unmet needs like anti-infectives for surgical infections apart from pain and dermatology for optimising business growth.

The company would pursue the existing candidates in the CVD area to their logical end but it has no new programmes related to both CVD and diabetes partly because the costs of clinical trials are too high, the top management of Dr Reddy’s said here on Monday.

Explaining the company’s focus on programmes that are expected to bring growth opportunities in the next five years, GV Prasad, its vice chairman and CEO, said the R&D efforts would be centered more around producing limited competition products and biosimilars.

The broad strategy drawn by the company for the next five years include emerging as one of the top leaders in global generics space in the top five markets, namely India, Russia, US, Germany and UK, be a leading biosimilar player and work on proprietary products.

Apart from this, Dr Reddy’s would also strive to position itself as a partner of choice in pharmaceutical services and active ingredients segment, according to Prasad.

The company would also work towards rejuvenating the Indian and European markets while continuing to increase its business in North America, he said. The total pharmaceutical business would be $1.1 trillion by 2015 of which 44 per cent would come from the US and Europe, according to the company projections.

Satish Reddy, managing director and chief operating officer, said the year-on-year growth that had been witnessed by the leading Indian companies in the US would start slowing down once they reach their top line to $ 1 billion in that particular market, the time when the inorganic route would be considered to accelerate growth.

Growth in India below expected levels
Though India has been a priority market for the company, the growth it has achieved so far has been far below expectations, according to Satish Reddy.

The company consistently grew more than the industry average in India for 7-8 quarters till early 2010. While its new marketing initiatives with regard to big brands as well as the mass market did work well initially, the results this year are way below expectations primarily because of huge attrition among field staff due to aggressive expansion undertaken by MNCs in the country, Reddy said. However, the company expects to see tangible results from these initiatives towards the end of the fourth quarter.