The Hindu Business Line : Lupin picks up minority stake in Australian company

Mumbai, Aug. 21 Lupin Ltd has acquired a minority stake in Australian drug-maker Generic Health Pty Ltd, the company said without disclosing financial details.

The Australian market is a significant global market with sales of over Australian $10 billion and it is witnessing rapid “genericisation”, a Lupin note said.

All Australian citizens are covered under the Government’s reimbursement plan called the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. And approximately one in every four prescriptions at Australian pharmacies had generic medicines in 2005, Lupin said in its annual report.

Generic drugs are innovative drugs that have outlived their patent-protected period or medicines that are chemically similar to innovative medicines.

In both cases, the generic drug is priced less than the original innovative drug.

As more drugs go off patent protection, the use of generic drugs will increase, the company said.

Further, growth in the generic drugs market will increase as the Government increases its efforts to use generic medicines in the reimbursement scheme, as the population gets older and as pharmacies begin to use more such drugs, the company added.

Generic Health has plans for the Australian generic drugs segment, as is evident from its acquisition of Bellwether Pharma and the strategic alliance with Actavis, the note said.

Lupin has a wholly-owned subsidiary in Australia to file product registrations and hold marketing authorisations. It also has alliances with other players in this market.

Lupin has has filed 16 dossiers of generic products with a total market size of about A$ 850 million and has approvals for 14 of these, the company said.

The deal with Generic Health will help Lupin enhance its product reach and market penetration, the note said.

Also, it will not affect the daily operations of Generic Health, it added.