Strides in second pact with Mayne Pharma

Bangalore based Strides Arcolab, a developer and manufacturer of pharmaceuticals, announced here on Wednesday the signing of a second licensing agreement with the Mayne Pharma Business unit, part of the Australia-based Mayne group.

The agreement will cover the manufacture and development by Strides of a range of six anti-infective products that will be marketed and distributed in the US and European markets by Mayne.

"This agreement is a follow up of a similar agreement that we had announced in December 2004 between the two companies. The previous one also involved six specialised injectable, non-cytotoxic products meant for the US market. The market value of these products is an estimated $350 million.

The new products for which this agreement has been signed has an estimated market value of more than $1.3 billion," said Arun Kumar, Managing Director, Strides ArcoLab.

"A lot of our growth has been happening in the area of pharmaceuticals where we focus on injectables which are mostly distributed through the hospital segment. We are never less than in the third place in the generic injectable segment," said Stuart James, MD and CEO of the Mayne Group.

The injectables are expected to start hitting the market in the final quarters of 2006 followed by the bulk of them in 2007.

According to the companies, the agreement's exclusivity will change from product to product and also on the market conditions and competitor positions.