Bangalore-headquartered pharmaceutical company, Biocon Ltd will start international trials for oral insulin after entering into a partnership arrangement with a global pharmaceutical company. Presently, the company is conducting trials for the drug in India.
Earlier, the company had achieved significant end points in its the phase-III clinical trial of oral insulin conducted in January this year and has decided to look for global trials to generate more data.
“Presently, we are conducting phase-III trials in India for oral insulin. We will go for global trials as we enter into partnership with an international pharmaceutical company,” Murali Krishnan, chief financial officer of Biocon said.
He, also, said that the company was in talks with many players for the arrangement and is likely to enter into a deal in the near future.
Oral insulin is a novel drug research initiative of Biocon which aims to cure type-II diabetes in patients. Till date, insulin available globally are injected to the patients and this will be the first such drug to be consumed orally if the trials become successful.
Referring to oral insulin programme, an analyst with a Mumbai-based brokerage firm said, “Outlicensing deal of oral insulin will both bring revenue and risk sharing to table for Biocon. This is different from the Pfizer deal as oral insulin is yet to be commercialised by any company globally.”
In October last year, Biocon had entered into an agreement with US-based pharmaceutical company, Pfizer to market Biocon’s four bio-similar products in the insulin space like Recombinant Human Insulin, Glargine, As part and Lispro in global market. The pharma company is likely to receive around $350 million from this arrangement.
Meantime, Biocon, which posted eight per cent growth in biopharmaceutical business in the first quarter ended June 2011, is expecting to ramp up sales numbers in the coming quarters.
“The single digit growth is partially due to slow growth in West Asia region, which is facing political uncertainty. Also, first quarter is usually a slow period for the company,” Krishnan said.
Biocon is diversifying its businesses into African region to ramp up growth in this vertical, he added.
Referring to compensation of revenue from divestment of Axicorp, he said that the company would take two-three quarters to compensate the revenue coming from Axicorp.
“On profit front, there is minimal impact on the balance sheet due to divestment of Axicorp,” he said.
The company, which earned Rs 14 crore of licensing income in the first quarter, is hopeful of sound growth in this segment in the coming quarters.
Biocon has reported a nine per cent drop in its net profit to Rs 70 crore in the first quarter of current financial year on the back of lower licensing income.
Total income of the company rose by 11 per cent to Rs 454 crore as compared with Rs 409 crore reported an year earlier. Operating profit increased by 12 per cent to Rs 133 crore during this quarter as compared with Rs 118 crore in the same period last year.
