Drug manufacturer Cipla on Thursday said its wholly owned subsidiary Meditab Specialities (MSPL) has acquired the remaining 75% stake in Goa-based biotech company Mabpharm for an undisclosed sum.
Cipla in a BSE filing said that the company was earlier holding 25% stake in Mabpharm. "Consequent to the acquisition of the aforesaid stake, Mabpharm has now become 100% subsidiary of the company," it said in the filing.
Mabpharm is inter alia engaged in development of monoclonal antibodies for treatment of cancer and auto-immune diseases. It has set up a new manufacturing facility in Goa in 2011.
According to a pharma analyst, it is quite likely for Cipla to go for more small size acquisitions. The company has recently made investments in Sri Lanka and Yemen to strengthen its front-end presence in those markets. "It is difficult to anticipate what the promoters are thinking. But the way, they are expanding, it does not look like they would go for any large acquisition at present," said the analyst.
In another development, the company has been sub-licensed by Medicine Patent Pool (MPP) for manufacturing of generic versions of antiretroviral drug, dolutegravir, developed by ViiV Healthcare. Other than Cipla, MPP has also signed sub-licenses with Laurus Labs, Micro Labs and Mylan to manufacture the generics of the same product for both adult and pediatric care. The United Nations-backed MPP negotiates licences with key patent holders to speed access of low-cost, generic medicines to developing countries.
"The HIV field needs new drugs all the time due to the development of resistance and treatment failure," said Jaideep Gogtay, chief medical officer of Cipla in a statement.
"Dolutegravir belongs to the new class of drugs - integrase inhibitors. This class of drugs brings new options for patients, has advantages over the existing drugs in terms of high efficacy and also brings down the viral loads rapidly. Access to the medicine in developing countries will make a major difference to the lives of HIV/AIDS patients living there," Gogtay added.
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