Overview of Indian pharmaceutical industry
has licensed out four products to a company for clinical development. SPARC is a full-fledged research company that discovers and develops new drugs/delivery systems •
And last, creation of a separate company is an innovative way to mitigate risks involved in the drug discovery business where, despite years of expensive research, the success ratio is still small.
Partnering for drug discovery Many Indian pharma companies have partnered for R&D and include large names like Zydus Cadila, DRL, Ranbaxy, NPIL, Biocon, to name a few. Most companies have tied up with other specialist research companies for development of new drugs on disease areas like cancer, diabetes, malaria and nervous system disorders. Similarly, DRL has partnered with ClinTec International for clinical trials and codevelopment of its anti-cancer drug. ClinTec International will possess the marketing rights for European markets while the commercialisation for the rest of the world and US markets would be retained by DRL. It has also tied up with Torrent Pharma for the exclusive marketing rights of its two hypertension drugs in Russia, where Torrent has a strong market hold. Business strategies comprising collaborative approach for drug discovery, strategic sourcing and divesting of manufacturing assets with a buyback business are some of the strategies increasingly used to work along with Indian MNCs. Co-opetition, denoting collaboration and competition, whereby companies collaborate in identifying best practices and sharing various steps in drug discovery to competing on generics, has been identified by all leading MNC players and their Indian counterparts. To cite an example, GSK and Ranbaxy have set up an early-stage partnership in drug research, under which GSK will provide the Indian firm with leads, Ranbaxy will conduct lead optimisation and animal trials, and GSK will take the drug through human trials. GSK will have exclusive rights to sell any resulting product in developed-world markets, and the two firms will copromote it in India. 55