While Sonke bagged 4.5 per cent, Cipla Medpro got 2 per cent of the two-year supply order announced a few days ago. The other suppliers are home grown firms such as Aspen Pharmacare "" that got the lion's share of the order (56.8 per cent) "" Adcock Ingram (20.9 per cent) and multinationals like GlaxoSmithKline (6.9 per cent) and MSD Pharmaceuticals (9.1 per cent). |
The orders are for about 10 commonly used anti-retroviral drugs and its combinations, sources said.
Sonke Pharmaceuticals is a JV between Ranbaxy South Africa and Community Investment Holdings, in which Ranbaxy has a majority stake. The company was floated during this year with plans of launching about 19 HIV/AIDS drugs meant for the local market.
Cipla's South African partner Cipla Medpro was born from a joint venture between Cipla International and South African company Medpro Pharmaceutica, which was acquired in December 2006 by local pharmaceutical group Enaleni. Cipla Medpro is the third largest generic medicines company in South Africa by volume.
Sonke manufactures the drug from a World Health Organisation certified facility at Waterloo, owned by sanofi-aventis. Apart from the drugs supplied by Sonke, Ranbaxy's South African subsidiary Ranbaxy South Africa sells about 10 ARV drugs extensively in the country's retail market.
