After Lipitor booty, Ranbaxy eyes branded products

Ranbaxy, which successfully mined its first-to-file (FTF) opportunity in the world’s largest selling drug Lipitor, is banking on certain branded products alongside its exclusive opportunities.

The Gurgaon-based company is slated to launch acne drugs, Absorica and Ximino, which have a market potential of about $400 million each in the US in the next few months.

Hemant Bakhru, analyst with CLSA, wrote in a September 7 report that Absorica is a limited competition area with just Teva and Mylan as competitors. Ximino, on the other hand, has seven competitors.

According to an analyst from a brokerage, $400 million is a reasonable opportunity, but players like Israeli firm Teva and US generic firm Mylan are extremely tough competitors.

“So it is really difficult to predict as to how much share Ranbaxy could end up garnering for the acne product,” said the analyst.

Under a deal, Ranbaxy is to launch Canadian firm Cipher Pharmaceuticals’ drug Absorica in October-December for $9 million consideration to Cipher as milestone payment.

Apart from the Absorica and Ximino, Ranbaxy has its edge in FTF opportunities where despite the exclusivity having ended on several products the company still holds a decent share.

“Ranbaxy’s US business will expand as exclusive opportunities leave a thick tail,” wrote Bakhru, adding that the company has strong market share of 30% in generic Valtrex and Aricept and a 45% share in generic Lipitor.

Ranbaxy, which was expecting to achieve a turnover of $3 billion by December 2012, gets approximately a third of its revenues from the US market.

In a conference call post the company’s June results, Ranbaxy MD and CEO Arun Sawhney had said the company was capable of successfully capitalising and monetising its FTF opportunities.

Ranbaxy raked in over $600 million in generic Lipitor, enjoying a 55% share during its six-month exclusivity period which ended in May.

However, apart from the FTF opportunities, there is not much to rejoice about for Ranbaxy, said Sarabjit Kour Nangra, senior VP, (research), Angel Broking.

“Its mainly due to its FTFs like on Lipitor and Valtrex that the company is seeing decent business in the US.”

Experts said till its problems with the US FDA, which had pulled up the company over irregularities in its manufacturing plants in Paonta Sahib and Dewas are completely sorted out, the US will continue to remain a bit bleak.