The Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech has forged a marketing alliance with the Rs 300 crore Unichem Laboratories for marketing hepatitis-B, sachromyces boulardi, recombinant streptokinase and recombinant typhoid vaccines.
The four products collectively have a target market of Rs 275 crore in the country, while foreign markets offer additional opportunities to explore. Unichem would market these products both in India and abroad, as per the agreement.
Unichem would market these products under its own brand name. Unichem has a marketing force of about 900 people and a reach to about 1,75,000 doctors across the country.
More From This Section
Bharat Biotech and Unichem Laboratories' are targetting patients undergoing bypass surgery and requiring immediate therapy. This market adds upto approximately 10 lakh patients per annum.
At present, there are only three domestic manufacturers of the vaccine in the country - Bharat Biotech, Shantha Biotech and Wockhardt while others are importing and marketing the vaccines here.
Both the companies signed an agreement to this effect on Monday. Mumbai-based private equity firm and investment banker Firstcall India Equity Advisors was the advisor to the deal.
Commenting on this, VVLN Sastry, head of Firstcall India, said: "It is a synergistic deal to Unichem and Bharat Biotech as it opens a wide market that an R&D-driven company like Bharat Biotech can get from Unichem. At the same time, attractive margins will make it a good proposition to Unichem."
"Indian biotech companies are ushering an era of major pharma-biotech alliances as it usually happens in the US and this is a good beginning," analysts said.
The domestic market size for the hepatitis-B vaccine is estimated at approximately Rs 150 crore as at March 2002 and the market has been growing at around 30 per cent a year. Hepatitis B vaccine sales are made through camps and institutional sales apart from the routine trade channels.