Pfizer, Inc. (PFE) recently joined hands with Indian company Strides Arcolab for the commercialization of off-patent sterile injectable and oral products in the United States. As per the agreement, these products will be commercialized through the company’s Established Products Business Unit.
Strides and its joint ventures with Aspen, Onco Laboratories Limited and Onco Therapies Limited, will supply the finished products to Pfizer. About 40 off-patent products, mostly oncology therapeutics, will be delivered by Strides under this agreement. The companies will start launching products under this agreement from this year.
Pfizer is already an established player in the injectable market, offering medicines from antibiotics to cancer therapies and the Strides deal will help boost its product offering. Pfizer markets injectables like Bacitracin, Camptosar, Zithromax IV, and Diflucan among others.
We believe that this agreement is in line with Pfizer’s aim to grow its generic business. Pfizer’s Established Products Business Unit (EPBU) was created in 2008. Established products are medicines that have lost patent exclusivity or are close to losing exclusivity. The Established Products Business Unit portfolio contains more than 600 products, both branded and generic, spanning a wide range of therapeutic areas.
Pfizer’s global sales of established products are more than $10 billion annually. According to the company, the global market for these products is big and growing. According to Evaluate-Pharma, the established products market was $270 billion in 2006 and is expected to grow to over $500 billion within the next five years.
The Pfizer-Strides deal is another example of global pharma companies looking towards Indian companies to help expand their generic product portfolios. While Pfizer itself has an agreement with another Indian company, Aurobindo Pharma, for manufacturing several generic drugs; GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has an agreement with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (RDY) for the development and marketing of select products in various emerging markets.
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