Daiichi Sankyo Company and Ranbaxy Laboratories announced that Ranbaxy’s New Drug Discovery Research (NDDR) has been transferred to Daiichi Sankyo India Pharma Pvt Ltd as part of the strategy to strengthen the global Research and Development (R&D) structure of the Daiichi Sankyo Group. By incorporating NDDR into the global Research function, the Group would benefit from more efficient global R&D, as also achieve quicker results.

Established in 1994, NDDR has high-level synthetic chemical research capabilities. The transaction has been approved by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.

The new organization, Daiichi Sankyo Life Science Research Center in India (RCI), based in Gurgaon, will play a key role in the Group’s global Drug Discovery Research - to create promising new drugs, especially in the area of low molecular weight infectious and inflammatory disease treatments. RCI will also continue to support the programs of dengue and tuberculosis that NDDR was working on in alliance with the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Atul Sobti, CEO and managing director of Ranbaxy, said, “The NDDR group offers significant skill sets in Drug Discovery, that would now integrate and perform more effectively with the New Drug R&D structure of Daiichi Sankyo. Within Ranbaxy, R&D of Generics will get a sharper focus, as we are increasingly working on more complex and specialist areas. Of course, this move would also provide Ranbaxy good value, on an immediate and recurring basis.”

“With the transfer of the NDDR into the Daiichi Sankyo Group’s pharmaceutical R&D organization, we will further strengthen our integrated global research capabilities through the addition of talented researchers who offer a new perspective and have a wealth of imagination and experience. We look forward to achieving outstanding and innovative results based on the implementation of global research management throughout our highly diversified and global R&D structure.” said Joji Nakayama, president & CEO of Daiichi Sankyo.

Ranbaxy has been a pioneer in India in the area of Research and Development. While NDDR will now become an integral part of RCI, Ranbaxy will continue to independently develop and later commercialise the anti-malarial new drug, Arterolane + PQP, which is currently in Phase III trials, and will also explore the further development of late stage programs developed by NDDR in the last few years, including the development programs in the GSK collaboration.