Company Watch

Ipca forays into Australia and New Zealand

Our News Bureau - Mumbai

Mumbai-based Ipca Laboratories has acquired 100 percent shareholding of a small formulation product dossier registration-cum-distribution company in Australia, now known as Ipca Pharma Australia BTY. This company is currently holding five formulation registration dossiers in that country and also has a wholly owned formulation dossier registration-cum-distribution company in New Zealand, now called Ipca Pharma New Zealand BTY, which is currently holding three formulation registration dossiers. Acquisition of these companies will help Ipca in strengthening its existing formulations business in Australia and New Zealand. The company was not ready to disclose any financial details regarding the deal. Ipca was recently in the news for its tie-up with Actavis, an Iceland-based low-cost producer of medicine, for the supply of two bulk drugs-atenolol and metformin.

Harish P Kamath, Company Secretary, Ipca, said, "For doing any formulation business you need your formulation dossier to be registered. An Indian company cannot register a formulation dossier in Australia without having a company there. New Zealand is also a very good market in which we are interested." The New Zealand business in that company is yet to start, as the registrations have come only recently. There is already a small business there, of about A$ 5,00,000.

Ipca produces and exports wide range of anti-malarial compounds like chloroquine, amodiaquine, primaquine, artemether, arteether and artesunate and their formulations. It exports to over 110 countries and 53 percent of the company's turnover comes from exporting anti-malarials, anti-emetics, anti-hypertensives, antibiotics and other drugs. Ipca's turnover was 921 crore in the year 2006-07, out of which exports were 484 crore. Net profit was 122 crore. Ipca currently spends four percent of its turnover on R&D and is now further expanding its collaborative new drug development activities.

In yet another development, Ipca has received approval for its anti-malarial finished product formulation, Artesunate Tablets 50mg under WHO's prequalification programme. The product is now listed in the WHO pre-qualification product list, dated 30 August 2007. The tablets are an artemisinin-based formulation which is recommended by WHO to be used in combination with other anti-malarials, such as amodia-quine, mefloquine or sulfado-xine + pyrimethamine.