Mumbai-based Centaur Pharmaceuticals has in licensed the development and distribution rights for Sorivudine, a topical antiviral drug for herpes from aRigen, a drug discovery and development biotech company based in Tokyo. S D Sawant, managing director, Centaur informed that the in licensing deal will be for profit sharing initially.

As per the deal the company will not only have the development and distribution rights for Sorivudine in India and the neighbouring countries, but it has also has bagged the rights for supplying API's for the drug to all over the world.

Sawant informed, "We will be marketing the drug as Sorpex in India and expect to get Rs 5 crore from the sale of this drug in the first year itself. It is an effective external ointment that promises cure for herpes in just two to three days." The company plans to launch the drug into the market within two years.

Giving further details Sawant said that his company will be conducting clinical trials for the drug in India at the latest, according to the Indian requirements. He said that they have already contacted seven to eight hospitals across the country for the phase-II clinical trials. Once they get cleared with that, the company plans to conduct phase-III clinical trials in at least 10 hospitals.

This is the third in licensing deal that the company is entering into. The first was with the a German company Cyto Tools for a new chemical entity (NCE), Diperoxochloric Acid solution (DPOCL), for diabetic foot ulcer. "We are in the phase-III of the clinical trial and are expecting to market the product by November 2011," informed Sawant. The second deal was in September last year with Japan's Sanju Pharmaceuticals for an opthal product. This deal with aRigen is the third in licensing deal that company is entering into.

Sawant said, "We are interested in applied research rather than invention and getting into an in licensing deal is the best way to do it. We do plan for expansion in the future by way of acquiring brands or by entering into co-marketing arrangements with MNC's with focus area on cold and cough, asthma and ophthalmology etc."

Sorpex was a project that was initiated by Yamasa, an independent, selective, non-profit teaching and research centre under the governance of the Hattori Foundation. It was discovered by Dr Haruhiko Machida in 2007 which was later bought by aRigen. Dr Gensuke Tokoro, president & CEO, aRigen said that his company has invested about US$ 60 million in the past nine years and US$ 3 million last year for development of drugs up to the IND stage. The company is involved in out licensing activities from 2009 and their main focus is on research on ulcer and antibiotic drugs.