Mankind Pharma sets sights on Novo Nordisk's anti-obesity drug Semaglutide

Mankind Pharma, India’s fourth-largest drug firm by market share, plans to come up with its generic version of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster anti-obesity drug Semaglutide, which goes off-patent next year. 

The firm is focusing on specialty chronic therapies like immunotherapy, antibody-drug conjugates, and gene therapy drugs, besides peptides like Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). 

Atish Majumdar, senior president, Sales and Marketing, Mankind Speciality, said he expected a handful of generic Semaglutide launches next year, and they would try to launch their version soon. Majumdar also felt that the prices of this class of drug would come down significantly. The GLP-1 class of drugs currently costs between Rs 40,000 and 50,000 for a full month’s course.  Typically, it is seen that after patents go off, the initial fall in prices of the innovator drug is around 30-40 per cent, after which there is a slow decline in prices, and it eventually comes down to about 75-80 per cent of the original price.     

“Obesity is a raging conversation globally now, and manufacturing of generics will pick up after the patent expiries,” Majumdar said, without wishing to comment on their launch timelines. He reasoned that studies on such complex biological products (like stability data, and bioequivalence) take time. Companies like Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Cipla, and Sun Pharmaceuticals (with its own GLP-1 molecule) are working on this class of drugs. In the past few years, Mankind Pharma has turned its attention to chronic therapies which account for 37.6 per cent of the company’s turnover, up from 27-28 per cent five-six years ago, Majumdar said, adding that it was ‘doable’ to take it to 50 per cent in the near future. Mankind’s chronic therapy segment has clocked a 15 per cent CAGR over FY20-FY24 against the domestic pharma market’s 11 per cent. The cardiovascular therapy has grown by an 18 per cent CAGR while anti-diabetic by 16 per cent. 

The company collaborated with Novartis to launch valsartan-sacubitril (a heart failure) drug around nine months before the patent expired. Similarly, in December it partnered with Chinese pharma major Innovent Biologics to sell the anti-cancer drug Sintilimab in India under an exclusive licence. Sintilimab, an advanced PD-1 immunotherapy, will be available in the country in three years.

In 2024, it entered into in-licensing agreements with AstraZeneca (Symbicort), Novartis (Crenzlo or Inclisiran), Takeda (Vonalog and Vonatime or Vonoprazan). Symbicort is a prescription inhaler that treats asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). 

Inclisiran is a cholesterol-lowering treatment that reduces levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol called low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in the blood. Vonoprazan is used to treat erosive esophagitis and heartburn, conditions involving too much acid in the

stomach.

 

Mankind has also managed to get around 40,000 patients on their insulin Glargine in about 16-17 months since launch.

 

“The focus is to give global quality at local prices. We used Drug Master File (DMF) grade active pharmaceutical ingredients in our products. These are the APIs used in drugs that are exported to the US. Let’s say we sell dapagliflozin (antidiabetic) for Rs 10 in India while Farxiga sells at around Rs 1,400-1,500 in the US,” Majumdar said.