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The New Drug Policy of India enters into the final lap of a Marathon Run

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Final working out and thereafter announcement of much awaited and long overdue the new ‘Drug Policy’ of India has now entered into a very interesting stage. This is mainly because of the unique combination of the following three key reasons:

1. 2002 Drug Policy was challenged in the Karnataka High Court, which by its order dated November 12, 2002 issued stay on the implementation of the Policy. This order was challenged by the Government in the Supreme Court, which vacated the stay vide its order dated March 10, 2003 but ordered as follows: “We suspend the operation of the order to the extent it directs that the Policy dated 15.2.2002 shall not be implemented. However we direct that the petitioner shall consider and formulate appropriate criteria for ensuring essential and lifesaving drugs not to fall out of the price control and further directed to review drugs, which are essential and lifesaving in nature till 2nd May, 2003”.

2. A live court case on the new draft ‘Drug Policy’ with the ‘essentiality criteria’ for price control is pending before the Supreme Court of India with its next hearing scheduled in the last week of July 2012. In this court case an independent network of several ‘Non-Government Organizations (NGOs)’ known as ‘All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN)’ is arguing against the ‘flawed’ draft ‘National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy 2011 (NPPP 2011)’, mainly on the following grounds:

  • ‘Market Based Pricing (MBP)’ methodology calculated on the ‘Weighted Average Price (WAP)’ of top three brands, as specified in the ‘Draft NPPP 2011’ would not only lead to increase in the prices of medicines, but also legitimize higher drug prices.
  • To keep the drug prices under check effectively, the ‘Ceiling Prices (CP)’ of Medicines should be based on ‘Cost based Pricing (CBP)’ model rather than MBP.
  • Adequate control mechanism is lacking in the NPPP 2011 to prevent the manufacturer from avoiding price control by tweaking with the formulations featuring in the National list of Essential Medicine 2011 (NLEM 2011).

3. In this scenario, a Group of Ministers (GoM) of the Union Cabinet has started deliberating on this issue since April 25, 2012 taking all key stakeholders on board to give its recommendations to the Union Cabinet on the scope, form, structure and the basic content of the new Drug Policy.

The bone of contentions:

The methodology and the span of price control of the draft NPPP 2011 have still remained the key bone of contentions for the new ‘Drug Policy’ of India. Suggested three key methodologies: From the responses received on the draft NPPP 2011, it appears that following three are the  suggested key methodologies to arrive at the CP of price controlled NLEM 2011 formulations:

  • Cost Based Pricing
  • Market based pricing

-  WAP of top 3 brands             -  WAP of bottom 3 brands

  • The formula suggested by the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of lesser of (i) the price paid by the median consumer + 25% and (ii) price paid by the 80th percentile consumer.

ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR AND AGAINST OF EACH: A. Cost based Pricing: Besides AIDAN, other reported key supporters of the CBP are the Ministry of Health and All India Chemists Associations. ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR: The current drug price control regime (DPCO 1995) is based on cost-plus pricing model, where Maximum Retail Prices (MRPs) of price controlled formulations are worked out as per the formula given in ‘para 7’ of DPCO, 1995 as follows: R.P. = [M.C. +C.C. +P.M. +P.C.] x [1+MAPE/100] +E.D. Where,

  • R.P:  Retail price
  • M.C:  Material cost, including process loss
  • C. C.: Conversion cost
  • P.M: Packing material
  • P.C: Packing Charges
  • MAPE : Maximum Allowable Post manufacturing Expenses of 100 percent
  • E.D.: Excise duty

The proponents of CBP believe that it is:

  • Transparent
  • Most beneficial to the patients
  • Fair, with a decent profit margin allocation for the manufacturers

ARGUMENTS AGAINST: Many others do not believe in CBP. They argue that price-inflation of non-price controlled drugs is much less than the price-controlled ones, which clearly vindicates that market competition works better than price control of drugs and thus is more beneficial to the patients. The following table shows the trend of general inflation against the drug price inflation from 1992 to 2011 period, as follows:

Type of Inflation

Inflation (in Index)
1. General Inflation

403
2. Price-controlled molecules

151
3. Non Price-Controlled Molecules

112

(Source: IMS data, RBI CPI average yearly inflation) This school of thought quotes the example of discontinuation of manufacturing in India 29 out of 74 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) under DPCO 1995 due to financial non-viability on account of CBP. Moreover, CBP is considered by them as a process, which is:

  • Intrusive
  • Lacking in transparency
  • Discretionary
  • Discouraging for innovation, high quality & efficiency
  • Not followed by any major country in the world
  • Not supported by even WHO. It says other countries are moving away from Indian type of CBP

B. Market Based Pricing (MBP): MBP in general is considered by its proponents as a system which is:

  • Transparent
  • Non-Discretionary
  • Encourages growth & investment
  • Rewards innovation
  • Promotes efficiency

The two variants of MBP under discussion are:

- WAP of top 3 brands

- WAP of bottom 3 brands

ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR:

1. WAP of top 3 brands:

  • It is a transparent system and will reduce the prices of medicines
  • With adequate checks and balances in place the method will not lead to increase in prices because of the following reasons:

- All price increases are subject to WPI              – Market competition will not permit any price increases              – Companies in low-price segments will create pressure to reduce prices further

2. WAP of bottom 3 brands: This group argues that instead of WAP of top 3 brands, if the same for the bottom three brands is considered, ceiling prices will come down very significantly, benefiting patients much more than what WAP of top three brands will do.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST:

1. WAP of top three brands:

  • Would lead to overall increase in the prices of many medicines
  • Below ceiling price brands would raise their price upto the ceiling price level immediately
  • Would legitimize high drug prices

2. WAP of bottom 3 brands:

  • Not representative of the market, as only the brands with a low market presence will be considered for WAP calculations
  • The Bottom 3 priced brands factor in only ~17% of the market
  • Likely to have an adverse overall impact on patients as many small brands with lowest acceptable quality standards will be considered for WAP calculations, which may ultimately push high quality formulations out of the market.

C. Formula suggested by EAC of the Prime Minister: ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR:

Will ensures affordable drug prices for the patients by:

  • Encouraging and rewarding high market competition
  • Discouraging monopolistic or oligopolistic market situation

ARGUMENTS AGAINST:

  • EAC criteria for insufficient competition are based on the 1994 Policy
  • The situation is different today as the market has grown 9 times since then
  • The number of brands tends to be low in lower volume turnover molecule segments mainly due to low disease prevalence. Thus bringing these molecules under CBP will be irrational
  • Instead of implementing CBP where lesser number of brands exists in many generic segments, EAC formula should encourage competition even in these lower value turnover molecule segments to bring the prices further down

That said, ‘Drug Price’ has always remained one of the critical factors to ensure greater access to medicines, especially in the developing economies like India, where predominantly individuals are the payors. This point has also been widely accepted by the international community, except perhaps by the diehard ‘self-serving’ vested interests. Important Points to Ponder:

A. ‘Drug Price’ control alone can not improve access to medicines significantly:

To improve access to medicines, even the Governments in countries like Germany, Spain, UK, Korea and China have recently mulled strict price control measures in their respective countries. However, it is important to note and as we have seen above, though the drug prices are indeed one of the critical factors to improve access to modern medicines, there is a need to augment other healthcare access related initiatives in tandem for a holistic approach.

In India, we have witnessed through almost the past four decades that drug price control alone  could not improve access to modern medicines for the common man very significantly, especially in the current socioeconomic and healthcare environment of the country.

B. Taming drug price inflation only has not helped improving access to medicines:

It is quite clear from the following table that food prices impact health more than medicine costs :

Year

Pharma Price Increases

Food Inflation

2008

1.1%

5.6%

2009

1.3%

8.0%

2010

0.5%

14.4%

Source: CMIE Exploring a practical approach: Considering pros and cons of the key methodologies of price control of formulations featuring in NLEM 2011, as I had written in this blog in April 2, 2012, I would like to reemphasize that a middle path with a win-win strategy to resolve this deadlock effectively would be in the best interest of both patients and the industry alike, in the current situation. The middle path, I reckon, may be explored as follows:

  1. Calculate ‘Weighted Average Price’ for each formulation based on prices of all brands – high, medium and low, applying some realistic exclusion criteria.
  2. When inclusion criteria for price control in the draft NPPP 2011 is ‘essentiality’ of drugs, it sounds quite logical that price control should be restricted to NLEM 2011 only.
  3. Enough non-price control checks and balances to be put in place to ensure proper availability of NLEM 2011 drugs for the common man and avoidance of any possible situation of shortages for such drugs.

Conclusion:

Conforming to the directive of the honorable Supreme Court of India on price control of essential medicines in the country, the GoM should now help resolving the issue of putting in place a robust new National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy, without further delay, taking the key stakeholders on board.

In any case, it has to be a win-win solution both for the patients and the industry alike, paving the way for improving access to modern medicines for the entire population of India, together with other strategic initiatives in this direction. This is absolutely essential, especially when medicines contribute around 72 percent of the total ‘Out of Pocket Expenses’ of the common man of the country.

By: Tapan J Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

Will Global Pharma Majors be successful in their foray into highly competitive generics pharma business offering no (patent) protection of any kind?

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As reported by IMS Health, emerging markets will register a growth rate of 14% to 17% by 2014, when the developed markets will be growing by 3% to 6% during the same period. It is forecasted that the global pharmaceutical industry will record a turnover of US$1.1 trillion by this period.

Mega consolidation process in India begins in 2009:

Fuelled by the above trend, the year 2009 witnessed the second biggest merger, so far, in the branded generics market of India when the third largest drug maker of Japan, Daiichi Sankyo acquired 63.9 percent stake of Ranbaxy Laboratories of India for US $4.2 billion.

This was widely believed to be a win-win deal for both Ranbaxy and Daiichi Sankyo, when Daiichi Sankyo will leverage the cost arbitrage of Ranbaxy effectively while Ranbaxy will benefit from the innovative product range of Daiichi Sankyo. This deal also establishes Daiichi Sankyo as one of the leading pharmaceutical generic manufacturers of the world, making the merged company a force to reckon with, in the space of both innovative and generic pharmaceuticals business.

Another mega acquisition soon followed:

Daiichi Sankyo – Ranbaxy deal was followed in the very next year by Abbott’s acquisition of the branded generic business of Piramal Healthcare in India. This deal, once again, vindicated the attractiveness of the large domestic Indian Pharma players to the global pharma majors.

In May 2010, the Pharma major in the US Abbott catapulted itself to number one position in the Indian Pharmaceutical Market (IPM) by acquiring the branded generics business of Piramal Healthcare with whopping US$3.72 billion. Abbott acquired Piramal Healthcare at around 9 times of its sales multiple against around 4 times of the same paid by Daiichi Sankyo.

Was the valuation right for the acquired companies?

Abbott had valued Piramal’s formulations business at about eight times sales, which is almost twice that of what Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo paid for its US$4.6 billion purchase of a controlling stake in India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories in June 2008.

According to Michael Warmuth, senior vice-president, established products of Abbott, the acquired business will report to him and will be run as a standalone business unit after conclusion of the merger process. Warmuth expects that the sales turnover of Abbott in India, after this acquisition, will grow from its current around US$ 480 million to US$2.5 billion in the next decade.

On the valuation, Warmuth of Abbott has reportedly commented “If you want the best companies you will pay a premium; however, we feel it was the right price.” This is not surprising at all, as we all remember Daiichi Sankyo commented that the valuation was right even for Ranbaxy, even when they wrote off US$3.5 billion on its acquisition.

For Abbott, is it a step towards Global Generics Markets?

It is believed that the Piramal acquisition is intended towards achieving a quantum growth of Abbott’s business in the IPM. However, it is equally important to note the widely reported quite interesting statement of Michael Warmuth’s, when he said, “we have no plans immediately to export Piramal products [to third-country markets] but we will evaluate that. You won’t be at all surprised that if we evaluate that.”

The Key driver for acquisition of large Indian companies:

Such strategies highlight the intent of the global players to quickly grab sizeable share of the highly fragmented IPM – the second fastest growing and one of the most important emerging markets of the world.

If there is one most important key driver for such consolidation process in India, I reckon it will undoubtedly be the strategic intent of the global pharmaceutical companies to dig their feet deep into the fast growing Indian branded generic market, contributing over 98% of the IPM. The same process is being witnessed in other fast growing emerging pharmaceutical markets, as well, the growth of which is basically driven by the branded generic business.

Important characteristics to target the branded generic companies in India:

To a global acquirer the following seem to be important requirements while shortlisting its target companies:

• Current sales and profit volume of the domestic branded generic business
• Level of market penetration and the rate of growth of this business
• Strength, spread and depth of the product portfolio
• Quality of the sales and marketing teams
• Valuation of the business

What is happening in other emerging markets? Some examples:

The most recent example of such consolidation process in other emerging markets happened on June 10, 2010, when GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that it has acquired ‘Phoenix’, a leading Argentine pharmaceutical company focused on the development, manufacturing, marketing and sale of branded generic products, for a cash consideration of around US $253 million. With this acquisition, GSK gains full ownership of ‘Phoenix’ to accelerate its business growth in Argentina and the Latin American region.

Similarly another global pharma major, Sanofi-aventis is now seriously trying to position itself as a major player in the generics business, as well, with the acquisition of Zentiva, an important player in the European generics market. Zentiva, is also a leading generic player in the Czech, Turkish, Romanian, Polish, Slovak and Russian markets, besides the Central and Eastern European region. In addition to Zentiva, in the same year 2009, Sanofi-aventis also acquired other two important generic players, Medley in Brazil and Kendrick in Mexico.

With this Sanofi-aventis announced, “Building a larger business in generic medicines is an important part of our growth strategy. Focusing on the needs of patients, Sanofi-aventis has conducted a regional approach in order to enlarge its business volumes and market share, offering more affordable high-quality products to more patients”.

Faster speed of such consolidation process could slow down the speed of evolution of the ‘generics pharmaceutical industry’ in India:

As the valuation of the large Indian companies will start attracting more and more global pharmaceutical majors, the revolutionary speed of evolution of the ‘generics pharmaceutical industry’ in India could slow down. The global companies will then acquire a cutting edge on both sides of the pharmaceutical business, discovering and developing innovative patented medicines while maintaining a dominant presence in the fast growing emerging branded generics market of the world.

Recent examples of Indian companies acquired by global companies:

1. Ranbaxy – Daiichi Sankyo
2. Dabur Pharma – Fresenius
3. Matrix – Myalan
4. Sanofi Pasteur – Shanta Biotech
5. Orchid – Hospira
6. Abbott – Piramal Healthcare

Indian Pharmaceutical companies are also in a shopping spree:

It has been reported that by 2009, around 32 across the border acquisitions for around US $2 billion have been completed by the Indian pharmaceutical and biotech players. Recently post Abbott deal, Piramals have expressed their intent to strengthen the CRAMS business to make good the drop in turnover for their domestic branded generics business, through global M&A initiatives.

Some of the major overseas acquisitions by the Indian Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies:

1. Biocon – Axicorp (Germany)
2. DRL – Trigenesis Therapeutics (USA)
3. Wockhardt – Esparma (Germany), C.P. Pharmaceuticals (UK), Negma (France), Morton Grove (USA)
4. Zydus Cadilla – Alpharma (France)
5. Ranbaxy – RPG Aventis (France)
6. Nicholas Piramal – Biosyntech (Canada) , Minrad Pharmaceuticals (USA)

What is happening in other industries?

In spite of the global financial meltdown in 2009, the future of M&A deals in India looks promising across the industry. Some of the major offshore acquisitions by the Indian companies are as follows:

 

Mega acquisition of foreign companies by Indian companies:

• Tata Steel acquired 100% stake in Corus Group on January 30, 2007 with US$12.2 billion.
• India Aluminum and Hindalco Industries purchased Canada-based Novelis Inc in February 2007 for
US $6-billion.
• The Oil and Natural Gas Corp purchased Imperial Energy Plc in January 2009 for US $2.8 billion.
• Tata Motors acquired Jaguar and Land Rover brands from Ford Motor in March 2008. The deal
amounted to $2.3 billion.
• Acquisition Asarco LLC by Sterlite Industries Ltd’s for $1.8 billion in 2009
• In May 2007, Suzlon Energy acquired Germany’s- wind turbine producer Repower for US$1.7 billion.

Mega acquisition of Indian companies by foreign companies:

• Vodafone acquired administering interest of 67% owned by Hutch-Essar, on February 11, 2007 for US
$11.1 billion.
• The Japan based telecom firm NTT DoCoMo acquired 26% stake in Tata Teleservices for USD 2.7
billion, in November 2008.

An alarm bell in the Indian Market for a different reason:

It has been reported that being alarmed by these developments, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) has written a letter to the Department of Pharmaceuticals, highlighting, “Lack of available funding is the main reason for the recent spurt in the sale of stakes in domestic companies”.

The letter urged the Government to adequately fund the research and development initiatives of the Indian Pharmaceutical Companies to ensure a safeguard against further acquisition of large Indian generic players by the global pharmaceutical majors. To a great extent, I believe, this is true, as the domestic Indian companies do not have adequate capital to fund the capital intensive R&D initiatives.

Will such consolidation process now gain momentum in India?

In my view, it will take some more time for acquisitions of large domestic Indian pharmaceutical companies by the Global Pharma majors to gain momentum in the country. In the near future, we shall rather witness more strategic collaborations between Indian and Global pharmaceutical companies, especially in the generic space.

The number of high profile M&As of Indian pharma companies will significantly increase, as I mentioned earlier, when the valuation of the domestic companies appears quite attractive to the global pharma majors. This could happen, as the local players face more cut-throat competition both in Indian and international markets, squeezing their profit margin.

It will not be a cake walk…not just yet:

Be that as it may, establishing dominance in the highly fragmented and fiercely competitive IPM will not be a ‘cakewalk’ for any company, not even for the global pharmaceutical majors. Many Indian branded generic players are good marketers too. Companies like, Cipla, Sun Pharma, Alkem, Mankind, Dr.Reddy’s Laboratotries (DRL) have proven it over a period of so many years.

We witnessed that acquisition of Ranbaxy by Daiichi Sankyo did not change anything in the competition front. Currently the market share of Abbott, including Solvay and Piramal Healthcare, comes to just 6.4% followed by Cipla at 5.5% (Source: AIOCD). This situation is in no way signifies domination by Abbott in the IPM, even post M&A.

Thus the pharmaceutical market of India will continue to remain fragmented with cut-throat competition from the existing and also the newer tough minded, innovative and determined domestic branded generic players having both cost arbitrage and the spirit of competitiveness.

Simultaneously, some of the domestic pharmaceutical companies are in the process of creating a sizeable Contract Research and Manufacturing Services (CRAMS) sector to service the global pharmaceutical market.

Conclusion:

In my view, it does not make long term business sense to pay such unusually high prices for the generics business of any company. We have with us examples from India of some these acquisitions not working as the regulatory requirements for the low cost generics drugs were changed in those countries.

Most glaring example is the acquisition of the German generic company Betapharm by DRL for US$ 570 million in 2006. It was reported that like Piramals, a significant part of the valuation of Betapharm was for its trained sales team. However, being caught in a regulatory quagmire, the ultimate outcome of this deal turned sour for DRL.

Could similar situation arise in India? Who knows? What happens to such expensive acquisitions, if for example, prescriptions by generic names are made mandatory by the Government within the country?

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.

With significant competitive edge should Global Biotech Companies consider entry into high potential ‘Biosimilar drugs’ business?

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‘Biosimilar drugs’ – rapid future growth potential:
In most of the developed countries of the world, besides regulatory issues, ‘Biosimilar drugs’are considered a threat to the fast growing global biotech industry. However, many believe that innovative biotech companies can have a head start with all wherewithals at their disposal, compared to generic pharmaceutical companies, to convert this seemingly significant threat into a bright emerging opportunity and derive the best possible mileage out of such changing environment.

Sandoz (Novartis) – first to launch a ‘Biosimilar drug’ in the USA:

In mid 2006, US FDA approved its first ‘Biosimilar drug’; Omnitrope of Sandoz (Novartis) following a court directive in the U.S. Omnitrope is a copycat version of Pfizer’s human growth hormone, Genotropin. Interestingly, Sandoz (Novartis) had taken the U.S FDA to court as the regulatory approval of Omnitrope was kept pending by them, in absence of a defined regulatory pathway for ‘Biosimilar drugs’ in USA.

The CEO of Sandoz had then commented, “The FDA’s approval is a breakthrough in our goal of making high-quality and cost-effective follow-on biotechnology medicines like Omnitrope available for healthcare providers and patients worldwide.” Despite this event, no one at that time expected the U.S FDA to start commencing approval of other ‘Biosimilar drugs’ within the country.

‘Biosimilar drugs’ – emerging global interest:

Thereafter, many developments are fast taking place in the space of ‘Biosimilar drugs’, the world over. To fetch maximum benefits out of this emerging opportunity, India is also taking steps to tighten its regulatory reform process for ‘Biosimilar drugs’ to allay general fear and apprehensions regarding safety of such drugs, in absence of adequate clinical data for the specific protein substance.

Merck’s entry in ‘Biosimilar drugs’ business is through an acquisition:

In the west Merck announced its entry into the ‘Biosimilar drugs’ business on February 12, 2009, while announcing its acquisition of Insmed’s portfolio of ‘Biosimilar drugs’ for U.S$130 million in cash. Rich pipeline of follow-on biologics of Insmed is expected to help Merck to hasten its entry into global ‘Biosimilar drugs’ markets.

Current status of ‘Biosimilar drugs’ in the USA:

The new administration of President Barak Obama has expressed its strong intent to pave the way for regulatory guidelines for ‘Biosimilar drugs’ in the USA. To facilitate this process, the new draft legislation titled, “Promoting Innovation and Access to Life Saving Medicine Act” has already been introduced by the legislators of the country. This legislation, when will come into force would help define guidelines for approval of ‘Biosimilar drugs’ in the USA with just a five year exclusivity period to the innovative products, against a demand of 14 years by the global biotechnology industry.

Lucrative Global market potential for ‘Biosimilar drugs’:

It is estimated that only in the top two largest pharmaceutical markets of the world, USA and EU, sales of ‘Biosimilar drugs’ will record a turnover of U.S$ 16 billion in next two years and around U.S$ 60 billion by year 2010, when about 60 biotech products will go off-patent.

Opportunity for the Indian biotech companies:

Such a lucrative business opportunity in the west will obviously attract many Indian players, like, Biocon, Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Ranbaxy, Wockhardt etc, who have already acquired expertise in the development of ‘Biosimilar drugs’ in India like, erythropoietin, insulin, monoclonal antibodies, interferon-alfa. Domestic Indian biotech players are not only marketing these products in India but also exporting them to other non/less-regulated markets of the world.

Indian Companies are fast preparing to take a sizable share of the global pie of ‘Biosimilar drugs’ market:

Ranbaxy in collaboration with Zenotech Laboratories is engaged in global development of Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor (GCSF) formulations. Wockhards is expected to enter into the Global ‘Biosimilar drugs’ market by 2010. Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories and Biocon are also preparing themselves for global development and marketing of insulin products, GCSF and streptokinase formulations.

Government of India funding for development of ‘Biosimilar drugs’ in India:

It has been reported that the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) of the Government of India has a proposal for funding of U.S$ 68 million through public private partnership (PPP) initiatives, where soft loans at the rate of interest of just 2% will be made available to the Indian biotech companies for development of ‘Biosimilar drugs’. Currently DBT spends around U.S$200 million annually towards biotechnology related initiatives.

Advantage India:

Experience in conforming to stringent U.S FDA manufacturing standards, having largest number of U.S FDA approved plant outside USA; India has acquired a great advantage in manufacturing similar high technology products in India. Significant improvement in conformance to Good Clinical Practices (GCP) standards in India offers additional advantages.

Two available choices for the innovator companies:

With increasing global cost-containment pressures within the healthcare space, emergence of a lucrative global ‘Biosimilar drugs’ market with appropriate defined regulatory pathway in place is inevitable now.

Major global research based companies will now have two clear choices in the fast evolving situation. The first choice is the conventional one of competing with the ‘Biosimilar drugs’ in all important markets of the world. However, the second choice of jumping into the fray of ‘Biosimilar drugs’ business keeping focus on R&D undiluted, appears to be more prudent to me and perhaps will also make a better business sense. Only future will tell us, which of these two business senses will prevail, in the long run for the global biotech companies.

By Tapan Ray

Disclaimer: The views/opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own, written in my individual and personal capacity. I do not represent any other person or organization for this opinion.