Glenmark snaps up South African company

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has acquired a South African pharmaceutical sales and marketing company Bouwer Bartlett Pty for an undisclosed amount.

Glenn Saldanha, Managing Director and CEO of Glenmark, said the acquisition was part of the company's long-term strategy to emerge as a speciality company marketing novel drugs through in-organic growth in key markets outside the US, the EU and Japan. Glenmark expects the South African operations to record $ 3.1 million of sales in the calendar year 2006.

The acquisition failed the cheer the sentiment the Glenmark counter in the falling Bombay market today. The Glenmark stock closed at Rs 291.75 on the BSE, 2.16 per cent lower than Friday's closing.

The Mumbai-based pharma company, which acquired the foreign firm through its wholly-owned Swiss subsidiary Glenmark Pharmaceuticals SA, said the acquisition would help it to expand its presence in South Africa. Bouwer Barlett is a leading player in South African with a presence in the dermatology segment. Bouwer has 22 products.

Glenmark is now present in over 30 of the 54 markets in Africa. The company has a representative office in South Africa since 2003, in addition to its three other offices in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.

The Medicine Control Council of South Africa recently visited Glenmark's solid dosage formulations plant in Goa and granted the cGMP approval. It will help the company to file additional generics in South Africa very soon.

Glenmark, a research-based pharmaceutical company, has generic formulation and API (active pharma ingredients) business in over 70 countries across the world including the US and Europe.

The formulation business spans several product segments such as dermatology, internal medicine, paediatrics, gynaecology, ENT and diabetes.

The company is also engaged in the discovery of new molecules and runs R&D projects in the areas of inflammation and metabolic disorders. It recently announced the licensing of its first asthma molecule- GRC 3886"" to Forest Labs and Teijin Pharma for the North American and Japanese markets, respectively.

This compound has completed Phase I clinical trials successfully and will be entering Phase II clinical trials in the US shortly. Glenmark's second lead molecule - GRC 8200, a DPP-IV inhibitor for Type II diabetes, has commenced Phase I clinical trials in the UK in October 2005.