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Our Bureau

Mumbai Dec. 5

PHARMA major Lupin Ltd on Friday announced completion of its financial restructuring, which will pare down its debt from over Rs 500 crore to about Rs 200 crore.

With its stronger balance sheet, the company will now strengthen its market for API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) and formulations, apart from quickening the clinical trials for its new molecule to battle tuberculosis.

As part of the financial restructuring, CVC International, Citigroup's private equity arm, recently entered into a share purchase agreement to acquire 12.5 per cent stake in the company.

"With Citi's investment of about Rs 126 crore now in place, our group restructuring is now completed," Dr Desh Bandhu Gupta, the Chairman told presspersons here on Friday.

Besides, the company's equity dilution to the extent of Rs 90 crore and another Rs 84 crore coming through its associates, Lupin's debt has been reduced by Rs 300 crore, which will be a significant reduction of the interest burden on the debt.

Coinciding with the completion of the financial restructuring, Lupin inducted on its board two representatives of Citigroup — Mr Marc Desaedeleer, who heads Citigroup's private equity business across central and eastern Europe, India, the Middle East and Africa, and Mr Sunil Nair, managing partner of CVC International.

Mr Marc said that CVC was looking at its investment in Lupin as a long term one, as it was confident of Lupin's potential in emerging as a global leader in the pharma sector. He pointed out that CVC had a significant exposure in India in different sectors, including IT.

On its future plans, Dr Gupta said the company was bullish on its new molecule to treat tuberculosis, for which the pre-clinical trials are over. "We intend to launch clinical trials shortly. The entire process will be costing between $60 million and $75 million to bring the drug to the mark," he said, adding that this will be the first drug for treatment of tuberculosis in the last 30 years.

He pointed out that the pre-clinical trial results had attracted the Global TB Alliance, which may "financially support" the clinical trial of the molecule. CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) has also offered to support the trials, as India had one-third of the world TB cases. With this new drug, the treatment of the disease could be reduced from the present one year to about six months and will be effective both in the primary and secondary treatments.

Dr Gupta said Lupin's Investigational New Drug Application for the prophylactic treatment of migraine has been approved by ICMR. The company plans to initiate phase 1 clinical trials in India, which is essentially a study for drug safety in humans.

On the marketing front, Dr Gupta said the company was planning to make a major foray into the Japanese market, which was the second biggest pharma market after the US. "We have just opened an office there and we intend to launch our products there soon," he said.

On psorasis, he said the company has already made a pre-IND (Investigational New Drug) presentation before the USFDA. "Within one or two months we will file the INDs in both US and India as we intend to launch clinical trials in both the countries," he said.

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