Indian CMO will make Roche blockbusters
pharmafile | March 6, 2012 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â Emcure, Herceptin, India, MabThera, Pegasys, RocheÂ
Roche has reportedly signed an agreement with Emcure Pharmaceuticals of India that will see the latter manufacturing its blockbuster drugs Herceptin and Pegasys under contract.
Emcure will manufacture breast cancer drug Herceptin (trastuzumab) and hepatitis B and C product Pegasys (peginterferon-alfa2a) on behalf of Roche for distribution within India and potentially other markets in Asia, according to a report in Pharmasia.
The overall objective will be to launch a second version of the products at a discount to Roche’s brand name products, which have seen their take-up in India restricted because they remain unaffordable for many consumers despite steep discounting on Western prices. The new versions will also be branded with a view to tapping export markets to other areas of the world.
Meanwhile, a separate report in the Economic Times has suggested that the deal could also be extended to cover Roche’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma therapy MabThera/Rituxan (rituximab).
The deal is a major coup for Emcure, which has already chalked up a string of successes in securing manufacturing contracts with multinational firms, but also represents a milestone as it is thought to be one of the first collaborations between a Western and Indian company on biologics manufacturing.
Previosuly, Emcure had signed licensing deals giving it local manufacturing and marketing rights to a series of small-molecule HIV drugs, namely Bristol-Myers Squibb’s atazanavir, Gilead Sciences’ tenofovir and Johnson & Johnson/Tibotec’s darunavir.
Phil Taylor
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