Joining hands

Mumbai, Oct. 26: Nicholas Piramal has joined hands with AstraZeneca of Sweden to manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) that go into the making of drugs.

Under the development and know-how agreement signed between them, the companies will together develop processes for the manufacture of intermediates ? active ingredients or bulk drugs ? for supply to AstraZeneca.

Nicholas Piramal said the agreement does not have a fixed tenure. ?It will continue and last as long as the two sides have products under development,? the company told stock exchanges. Company sources, however, refused to spell out details of the therapeutic categories that the agreement will target.

The agreement with AstraZeneca is part of Nicholas Piramal?s (NPIL) business model to grow through collaborations with innovators. This contrasts the strategy of other domestic pharmaceutical companies which have been aggressively targeting the generics market.

While many of these companies are now engaged in patent challenges with innovators of various drugs, their strategy is perceived to be of high risk, even though rewards may be high in case of favourable outcomes to patent challenges.

However, officials said NPIL has been building a model that generates high growth and also comes up with low risk. The company has formulated a strategy of IPR compliance and partnering innovator companies. In line with this objective, NPIL does not operate in the early-to-market generics segment. Instead, it has been focussing on custom manufacturing.

Last year, it secured two custom manufacturing agreements for development and supply of various pharmaceutical products to a leading US company.

The agreement is for a period of five years. Under the pact, NPIL will initially supply a select group of products, which may expand over a period of time.

In July, NPIL picked up a 17 per cent stake in Canada?s BioSyntech Inc for around $5 million.