Biocon and Pfizer Join Hands for Biosimilars

By Christopher Walker
Oct 18 2010

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has signed an agreement today with India based Biocon to sell human insulin and insulin analogs produced by the latter throughout the world.

The deal stated that Pfizer would be paying 200 million dollars initially. Later additional payments will be made to the tune of 150 million dollars. Biocon is one of the largest biological pharmaceutical companies in India.

All the major pharma companies including Pfizer have been for a long time looking to make an entry into the biological drug market. The drugs are not made in factories but are made in living cells. The prices for such drugs are quite high and they help the company to void off competition from ordinary chemical drugs. 

The bigger rivals of Pfizer, Merck have a dedicated business unit to make such drugs. These drugs are also called Biosimilars by some. The recent health reforms have asked the Food and Drug Administration to create a system which can help them to approve such drugs. 

The president and general manager David Simmons of Pfizer’s established products business unit considers the partnership with Biocon a good foundation for their plans related to Biosimilars. This was said by him at the news conference held on Monday.

The managing director of Biocon Kiran Mazumdar Shaw said that the cost advantage her company offers will be beneficial for Pfizer. According to Mr. Simmons, Biocon is the leading company when it comes to bringing new products to the market.

This would also help their sales in emerging markets as sales slow down considerably in Europe, Japan and the US.  They hope to bring them to the US by 2015 or 2016.