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DRL has set up a new company to develop drugs in which units of ICICI bank and Citigroup Inc. will invest helping it lower research costs and reduce the risks of failure. ICICI Venture Funds and Citigroup Venture Capital will invest $22.5 million each in Perlecan Pharma and Dr Reddys will initially invest $7.5 million. Hyderabad based Dr Reddy said that the indian drug maker will transfer 4 drugs under development to the new company and eventually hold a majority stake. Profit has reduced at Dr. Reddys in the past 2 years because of the competition in the US and high research costs. To develop drugs the company has spent 13% of its $446 million revenue last year trying to counter competition in generics, or copies of drugs whose patents have expired by creating its own treatments. In case a drug fails to gain approval its partners will share the risk. Sandeep Neema said, "Companies will continue to follow these kinds of de-risking strategies in an environment which is now becoming tougher. |
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| Posted : 9/29/2005 |
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