Amphocil, the Gold Standard antifungal, is a propriety drug designed to treat progressive and potentially fatal systemic fungal infections. Launched in the UK in 1993, it is currently a Rs 400-crore product globally.

Sequus Pharmaceuticals director Ian Hicks said that Criticare would have the exclusive right to market amphocil for five years in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. No royalty will be payable to the American company for its product and Hicks added that the technological sophistication of amphocil would make it rather difficult for reverse engineering.

Criticare dirctor A Suryanarayan said that the product would be priced at around Rs 8,000 which would work out to roughly 35 per centcheaper than competitor Piramal Healthcare's brand.

Amphocil will be imported from Sequus' American facility and marketed by Criticare's 60-and-odd front line sales force. Criticare group product manager, Feroze Rehman, said that the company was targeting sales of around Rs 10 crore within the next three years.

CritiCare is a 51:19 joint venture company of US-base Tech I Ventures Inc and Bangalore based Recon Ltd. The joint venture is also working towards consolidating its presence in the eternal nutrition segment and is also currently in talks with an overseas player for a possible alliance.

The California-based Sequus is an integraterd pharma company revolutionising therapies for cancer and other diseases using advanced drug delivery technologies. The company is also working on the development of a host of new drugs including CD4, radiosensitizers, topoisomerase inhibitors and ciprofloxacin (in collaboration with German multinational Bayer).