Venus Pharma GmbH, Germany, a wholly owned subsidiary of Venus Remedies has entered into a distribution-cum-out-licencing agreement with Mylan to market its generic broad-spectrum antibiotic, Meropenem, in three European countries of Denmark, Sweden and Finland for a period of five years.
“Under this non-exclusive marketing agreement, we will manufacture the drug at our Baddi facility, which recently has renewed its European Union Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) certification, while the batch release and logistics will be handled by our Germany facility. This joint venture will further help Venus Pharma GmbH and its collaborators to figure among the top five players with around 30 per cent share in meropenem markets in Germany, France and UK,” said Ashutosh Jain, executive director-cum-chief operating Officer (COO), Venus Pharma GmbH, Werne, Germany.
Venus already has a non-exclusive marketing tie-up with Mylan for the same product in France, where the drug has been successfully launched and is contributing to the company’s top and bottom lines.
Meropenem belongs to the carbapenem class of antibiotics and can be used effectively in both children and adults. The global annual generic sales drug is US$ 1,879 million in 2012 and estimated to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 7.5 per cent to reach around US$ 2,100 million in 2014-15. The drug is a broad-spectrum antibiotic used in ICU infections as a last resort for the treatment of life-threatening infections. As per IMS Health, the market size for this product in Denmark, Sweden and Finland is approximately Euro 12.54 million.
The company has secured over 60 marketing authorisations for meropenem throughout the world from countries like the UK, France, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden, Portugal, Czech Republic, Cyprus, New Zealand and Mexico, among others. The company recently got its first Australian marketing authorisation for this product in tie-up with Lupin. Venus is now all set to receive marketing approvals for meropenem from Switzerland and South Africa.
“The sales by its Germany subsidiary is US$ 15.6 million in the last one year. Now with Mylan collaboration, Venus Pharma GmbH can increase its earnings,” said Pawan Chaudhary, chairman and managing director (CMD), Venus Remedies Limited.
The company is in talks for more strategic tie-ups in regulated markets. Venus in India has a capacity production capacity of 16 million units for meropenem per annum on single-shift basis. The company is currently utilising 50 per cent of its capacity.