Intas eyes US market for bio-generic drugs

Intas Biopharmaceuticals (IBPL), a group company of Intas Pharmaceuticals, has set its eyes on the US bio-generic market and is scouting for a partner in that country to launch its bio-generic products.

R Chandrashekhar, senior vice-president, global marketing, said, "We are scouting for a partner in the US as we plan to enter the US bio-generic market."

However, the company will not be able to foray into the US bio-generic market immediately as the regulators there have not yet issued any clear guidelines on bio-generic products.

According to an estimate, bio-generic market is expected to grow to $25 billion in Europe and $30 billion in the US by 2015 as many existing blockbuster bio-tech drugs are going off-patent in the coming years.

On Tuesday, the company announced that it has received the certification from the European Agency for Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA) for its Ahmedabad facility. The certification will strengthen the company's existing alliances and pave the way for new pacts.

Mani Iyer, director, IBPL, said, "On the research and development (R&D) front, the certification will allow IBPL to get an entry into the regulated markets in Europe to conduct clinical trials for many of our products, which are in the pipeline."

The company will soon launch its first product in Europe with its European partner. The product will be G-CSF, a therapeutic recombinant proteins neukine. Intas Biopharmaceuticals would be the first Indian company to launch a bio-generic drug in Europe, claimed the company.

In the domestic and in some international markets, the company has already launched therapeutic recombinant proteins Neukine (rHu G-CSF), Erykine and Epofit (rHu EPO) and Intalfa (rHu IFN Alfa-2b).

IBPL has entered into several distribution and marketing agreements with reputed international companies in regulated and semi-regulated markets of Europe, Asia-Pacific, West Asia, Russia, the CIS, South and Central America and Africa.