Glaxo Buys Out Pharma Cos Of Biddle Sawyer

In its first ever acquisition, Glaxo India Ltd has bought 100 per cent of three pharma companies of the Rs 35 crore Biddle Sawyer group. The companies, owned by the Shah family, are Biddle Sawyer, Croydon Chemical Works and Meghdoot Chemicals.

The Shah family will exit the pharma business completely. Biddle Sawyer and Croydon Chemicals were floated about 50 years ago and are jointly managed by brothers N P Shah and J P Shah. The three companies have a combined turnover of about Rs 35 crore with their brands accounting for roughly 1 per cent of the total formulations market.

 

This is Glaxos first ever domestic acquisition. The company, which will soon absorb Burroughs Wellcome India, following the global merger two years ago, had recently sought shareholder approval for investing Rs 300 crore in the equity of other companies.

The Glaxo board met on September 30 to approve the acquisition. Completion of formalities related to the acquisition will take a month or so. We have already initiated proceedings for necessary approvals, said Glaxo India managing director H R Khusrokhan.

Asked if Glaxo would have to hold an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to get shareholders approval of the acquisitions, Khusrokhan said: Shareholders have already passed an enabling resolution at the annual general meeting and we will not have to go back to them for the approval. However, he declined to reveal the cost of the acquisition, saying we are not going to divulge the cost at this stage.

Glaxo India, along with Burroughs Wellcome, had earmarked Rs 400 crore for acquisition of brands and pharmaceutical companies. Shareholders had passed the resolutions at their AGMs.

A Biddle Sawyer director said: We are getting out of the pharma business but will continue with our indenting business. The family owns BS International, which carries on indenting for Henkel of Germany and Takeda of Japan.

The acquisition will give Glaxo access to our speciality products as we have strengths in anti-asthmatics, orthopaedical, gynaecology and nephrology products, he added. The product basket has around 60 products with Bidanzen, a Rs 7.6 crore product, featuring in the list of top 250 products. Other major products are Alpha-D3, Bronkoplus, and Biduret.

With a field force of around 250 and a workforce of 250, the group owns three factories in Mumbai one each at Goregaon, Kalyan and Colaba.

The products offered by them will give Glaxo a presence in new product categories. Glaxo has around 70 products in 14 therapeutic categories including analgesics, anaesthetics, anti-allergics, antibiotics, oncology, anti-TB, dermatologicals, respiratory, hormones, vitamins and haematinics.

Burroughs Wellcome products are in the categories of analgesics, anthelminthics, anti asthmatics, oncology, anti gout, anti leprosy, anti viral, cardiovascular, antibiotics and anti-Parkinson drugs.