Ranbaxy To Scour For Us Acquisitions In 2003

Pharmaceuticals major Ranbaxy Laboratories said it would be looking at acquisitions in the US in 2003.

The company is also drawing up a marketing blitzkrieg plan for the US, prior to its proposed 2003 listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The money from the float will be utilised for the buyouts. Ranbaxy's general manager Paresh Choudhary said the company will take the inorganic route to become a $1 billion entity by 2004. "We will be looking at mergers & acquisitions in the US to grow," he said.

Ranbaxy already has two subsidiaries in the US, Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc and Ohm Pharma Inc, and sells generic drugs such as amoxycillin, and ranitidine, in the US.

Analysts feel the company's brand campaign and NYSE listing is targeted at the growing US generics market.

India thus far was the biggest generics market for a company such as Ranbaxy, but now US is likely to be the biggest. According to industry analysts, the generics market in the US is growing with more drugs going off the patent list.

Historically, generics has posted volume-driven growth for Ranbaxy albeit with lower margins compared to branded drugs.

Analysts feel the decision to list in the US and buy into a drug company will make it easier for Ranbaxy in its business dealings there.

"To sell any drug in the US you need FDA approval of the manufacturing facilities while each drug also needs separate approval, and it would be a smarter way to grow by acquisition as all these time-consuming approvals would already be there with the target company," an analyst said.

"We want to go up the value chain through novel drug delivery system (NDDS) and new drug discovery research (NDDR) processes and this would also play a major part in our US strategy," Choudhary said.

Ranbaxy has achieved success in NDDS and two years back had licensed once-a-day cipro (ciprofloxacin) to Bayer AG for clinical trials. Its Indian competitor Dr Reddy's Laboratories is among the few Indian companies to have achieved success in NDDR and has licensed its diabetes drugs for clinical trials to Novo Nordisk.