Quintiles to invest in drug development tie-ups in India

Posted: Saturday, Apr 07, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST
Updated: Saturday, Apr 07, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST

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Mumbai, Apr 6: Quintiles Transnational Corp, one of the largest clinical trials organisations in the world, is scouting for drug development partnerships with Indian companies through its 100% subsidiary NovaQuest. "We are in talks with a few companies, but these are in the early stages," said Quintiles chairman & CEO Dennis Gillings. Quintiles has already invested close to $1.5 billion in drug development partnerships in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology worldwide, including with major MNCs like Eli Lilly and Solvay Pharmaceuticals.

“The Indian pharmaceutical industry will make a significant contribution in the next five to ten years. At this moment, although investing in Indian companies is not our core focus, we are studying the opportunities,” Gillings said. NovaQuest has partnerships with more than 35 companies, most of which are in the US. “It is easier for us to invest in US companies,” said Gillings, whose North Carolina headquartered company had 2006 revenues of around $2 billion.

NovaQuest's move comes at a time when a number of Indian companies, including Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's, Sun Pharma, Nicholas Piramal and Wockhardt are in various stages of developing their own innovative drugs or new chemical entities (NCEs). The research and development of such drugs is capital intensive and risky, and companies are looking at a collaborative approach to drug development. Recently, Tata-promoted Advinus Therapeutics tied up with US' Merck & Co and Nicholas Piramal is partnering with Eli Lilly for drug development. Ranbaxy has an existing tie up with Glaxo SmithKline to develop new medicines.

For Eli Lilly, NovaQuest (earlier called PharmaBio Development) committed more than $400 million in milestone payments and sales force services to fund the launch of Cymbalta, an antidepressant and pain reliever, and support its commercialisation efforts for five years. Eli Lilly was, at that point, under financial pressure from the expiration of its Prozac patent, combined with multiple product launches.

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