Strides Arcolab gains as unit enters into JV to develop biosimilar products

Strides Arcolab rose 2.34% to Rs 837.05 at 10:31 IST on BSE after the company said its subsidiary has entered into a JV with Pfenex Inc. to develop, manufacture and commercialize an initial pipeline of six biosimilar products for the global market.

The company made the announcement after market hours on Tuesday, 16 April 2013.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 27.42 points or 0.15% at 18,772.35.

On BSE, 21,000 shares were traded in the counter as against average daily volume of 2.02 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 840 and a low of Rs 822 so far during the day. The stock had hit a record high of Rs 1,224.90 on 5 December 2012. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 617.60 on 16 April 2012.

The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 16 April 2013, sliding 8.3% compared with the Sensex's 3.51% fall. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, declining 24.33% as against Sensex's 5.41% fall.

The mid-cap company has equity capital of Rs 59.05 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

Agila Biotech, a wholly owned subsidiary of Strides Arcolab, will hold a majority 51% stake in the joint venture with Pfenex Inc. Both Agila and Pfenex will equally share in decision making regarding product development and commercialization. The multiproduct joint venture combines Pfenex's industry-leading expertise in strain engineering and process development with Agila Biotech's biologics manufacturing and clinical development excellence, Strides Arcolab said. The lead product for the joint venture is Interferon beta-1b, a biosimilar to Betaseron, indicated for relapsingremitting and secondary-progressive forms of multiple sclerosis, commencing human clinical trials by Q4 December 2013.

Under the terms of the agreement, Pfenex will assume primary responsibility for development of an optimized production strain, process and analytical package for each product, while Agila Biotech will be responsible for pre-clinical and Phase 1 development, as well as cGMP manufacturing. The joint venture will then progress the products through Phase 3 and into commercialization. Manufacture of the collaboration products will be carried out at Agila Biotech's state-of-the-art manufacturing facility being built with Bio-XCell at Nusajaya, Johor, Malaysia -- a 160 acre site comprised of customized biotech facilities.

Commenting on the development, Dr. Anand Iyer, CEO at Agila Biotech said, "Successful foray into the biologics space for companies like Agila Biotech would hinge not only on building a state-of-the-art infrastructure and strong technical foundation, but also on creative partnerships such as the one that Agila Biotech has entered into with Pfenex. This will allow us to not only leverage time and cost advantage of developing products in India and Malaysia, but also serves as a gateway to a vast region in South Asia, South-East Asia and the OIC region currently underserved as a result of the lack of high quality, cost effective biologics".

Dr. Iyer also noted that its facility in Malaysia represents a strategic move to bolster Agila Biotech's manufacturing presence in the region and tap into unmet global demand for quality biologics at affordable prices.

Dr. Bertrand Liang, CEO at Pfenex said, "One of the global challenges for the future of healthcare is to develop and produce products within the confines of a constrained cost environment. Biosimilars are and will play an increasingly important role in patient disease management. This venture between Pfenex and Agila Biotech will allow us to leverage our infrastructure for the development of safe, reliable and cost-effective therapies for patients to address unmet medical needs all over the world".

Pfenex is a biotechnology company developing biosimilars and innovative vaccines to address unmet and growing global healthcare needs. Pfenex also produces and markets research proteins and reagent proteins for the research and drug development community through its Reagent Proteins division.

Strides Arcolab's consolidated net profit fell 10.6% to Rs 61.19 crore on 12.6% decline in net sales to Rs 597.27 crore in Q4 December 2012 over Q4 December 2011.

Strides Arcolab is a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Bangalore. The company has 14 manufacturing facilities across 6 countries with presence in more than 75 countries in developed and emerging markets.

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