Venus eyes tie-ups globally for AMR drugs

Venus Remedies, a Rs 460-crore pharmaceutical company, is set to step up the commercialisation of its sizable research and development (R&D) pipeline. A leading entity in injectables, it already exports 75 drugs in 60 markets abroad. Of its current 25-drug R&D pipeline, it has launched 13 products and has started discussion wth multinational corporations to market these across the globe.

Dheeraj Aggarwal, chief financial officer, said: "So far, we had our entire focus on R&D. We want to monetise our effort and after launch of 13 molecules, we are ready to launch another 12 soon. As a leading player in anti-microbial resistance (AMR), we are trying to create a niche area with our expertise." AMR is the resistance of bacteria or viruses to antibiotics. The global market for AMR drugs is about $40 billion a year.

Early this month, Venus got a Japanese regulatory nod for Elores, an antibiotic found effective against carbapenemase-resistant enterococci bacteria. Venus is expected to launch Elores in Japan, the second largest global pharma market, by the end of 2015. It has patents for Elores from 46 countries, including the US, South Korea, India and major European Union constituents. The company expects this product to generate annual revenue of around $100 million (Rs 600 crore) by 2018.

It has a deal with Korean pharma giant Goodwills Co for exclusive marketing rights of Elores. South Korea’s pharma market is $20 bn and growing at a compounded annual rate of 6.5 per cent, of which the antibacterial market is around $2 bn.

"Elores is designed to address 15 per cent of this segment ($300 mn). The company is hopeful of capturing 15 per cent market share within three years of its launch, making it a $45 mn product in South Korea," a recent research report by Sunidhi Securities said.

"Similar to our recent tie-up in Korea, we are in talks with various MNCs for marketing tie-ups across the globe for our ARM drugs," said Aggarwal. Another drug under this category,- Vancoplus, has also been approved by the Japanese patent office.

Drugs similar to Elores and Vancoplus have a $4-bn market globally, of which 22 per cent of sales come from the US. "Though we don’t have a plant approved by the US FDA (the regulator), we might outsource the manufacturing for Elores and Vancoplus to other US FDA -approved plants in India," said Aggarwal.