Indian Medicine Manufacturer Eyes U.S.

NEW DELHI – India’s top traditional medicine manufacturer plans to spend 1.2 billion rupees ($27 million) so it can produce generic versions of cancer drugs that will lose U.S. patent protections in the next five years to seven years, a company official said Friday.

The move is a shift for Dabur India Ltd., which in the past has primarily produced herbal medicine.

The money will go to improving the capacity of the company’s new pharmaceutical arm, Dabur Pharma Ltd., which currently produces some modern medicines.

Dabur Pharma has identified 15 cancer drugs that will go off patent in the United States in coming years and is planning to replicate them so it can tap into the lucrative generic drug market, Chief Financial Officer Arun Gupta told Dow Jones Newswires.

Gupta didn’t name the drugs, but said their combined U.S. sales currently range between $8 billion and $10 billion.

Scores of Indian companies have entered the U.S. market in recent years by selling generic versions of drugs after patents expired.

The company will file Abbreviated New Drug Applications, or ANDAs as they are referred to in the industry, for the medicines when they go off patent, the company said. It also said it has a deal to market the drugs with Hospira, the hospital division of Abbott Laboratories, based in Abbott Park, Ill.

“Once the approvals are in place, we will need more capacity,” Gupta said, adding that it takes a year to 18 months to get the approvals.

The company plans to build a new plant in northern Himachal Pradesh state and expand capacity at its plant in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal by March 2007, Gupta said. It also has a plant in Britain.

Cancer medications and bulk drugs contributed 63 percent to the company’s sales of $55 million in the year that ended March 31. The company sells oncology medications in 35 countries.