Bio-pharma major Biocon has just lost its most prized partner. A $350-million deal, it had struck with the American drug maker Pfizer for commercialisation of its insulin products, came to an abrupt end earlier this week. And after 15 months, Biocon suddenly finds itself without any support for breaking into the key markets of America and Europe. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the chairperson and MD of Biocon, however, believes that the event is not a major blow. In a conversation with Shreya Roy, Mazumdar-Shaw gives her take on the reasons behind and financial repercussions of the break-up, and talks how it would affect her chances of finding similar deals for other products.
Pfizer was your marketing channel in places like the US and Europe. How are you planning to go to these markets now?
It?s quite simple. Even prior to signing up with Pfizer, we had a strong network of regional partners in developing places like Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Tunisia and Thailand. Instead of going with one big partner, we are going to look at a number of smaller ones. We will now leverage our existing network and work on creating local brands. Simultaneously, we will also look for, and bring on board, prospective partners in the US and Europe.
Will this be a difficult proposition?
Globally, insulin is a $15-billion opportunity. There is no dearth of interest in the space.
You had expected the tie-up with Pfizer to open up revenues from various untapped markets. How will this impact Biocon?s financial plans?
There is going to be no short term impact of this on Biocon. The $100 million upfront payment they had made will be retained by us.
We are also going to receive a substantial part of $100 million in Escrow, in addition to other settlements. But I can not comment on how much that is likely to be.
You have been trying to find partners for various other programmes, including the oral insulin currently being developed. How will the Pfizer deal collapse reflect on those?
I don?t think so at all. This deal terminated due to differing priorities. We still enjoy a good reputation, and trust in the market. Finding partners for our other products is not going to b effected by this.
Since when has this split been on the anvil? You have cited individual priorities as the cause for it.
This has been on the offing for past couple of months. Pfizer, at the global level, has been undergoing quite a few changes in its business, with a lot of reshuffling and organisational changes. What has happened as a part of this reshuffle, is that they have realised they have several large competing biosimilar programmes. And they have decided that they want to concentrate more on things like antibodies and recombinant proteins. But for us, at Biocon, this still remains the top priority ? it?s a very high focus area for us. Keeping this conflict of priorities in mind, we decided that it would be best for Biocon to pursue this independently. It was a very amicable settlement.
