Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals has entered into an out-licensing and distribution agreement with US-based pharma major Alvogen for marketing eight of its non-antibiotic generic formulations in the US market. Under this agreement, Orchid will develop and manufacture eight oral non-antibiotic formulations for licensing to and marketing by Alvogen in the US. Alvogen will source these products from Orochid exclusively. The products will be manufactured at Orchid's state-of-the-art oral API and dosage form facilities, which are approved by the US FDA.

Alvogen would pay certain dossier license fees to Orchid based on development and regulatory milestones and share profits arising from marketing of these products in the US with Orchid. Both the companies would share the legal expenses and bio-study costs.

K Raghavendra Rao, managing director, Orchid, said, “Orchid has created a strong base in the US generics market through its antibiotic and non-antibiotic product portfolio. Our growth in the US generics market, since our entry in 2005 has been very robust and this has been possible because of our high value niche product line and the marketing alliance model that we embarked on. Moving forward, we are progressing on further leveraging on our non-antibiotic product portfolio. Through the alliance that we have entered into with Alvogen, we are confident of achieving robust additions to our business from the US non-antibiotic generic formulations segment.”

These eight non-antibiotic oral formulations licensed to Alvogen under the agreement comprise products in the high-growth therapeutic segments of CNS and osteoporosis among others. The combined addressable market size of these eight products is around US$ 8 billion. Both the companies believe that the combination of their respective development, manufacturing and regulatory and marketing competencies would result in achieving a strong position for all the products in the US market.