INDIA – Amneal Pharmaceuticals, a US-based drug maker is set to make a debut in India’s domestic formulation market, with focus on biologics, complex injectables, and specialty drugs.
The company plans to hit the Indian market with its first products aimed at addressing the critical care market as early as the first quarter of 2022.
Subsequently, the company intends to launch a branding and awareness campaign in the second-half of 2022 and introduce more products by then.
Chirag Patel, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Amneal, said that the company “will be creating an Amneal brand in India.”
The company has adopted a strategy in India that is aimed at serving the unmet need and provide high quality products at affordable prices.
The same products that go into the US market from the company’s manufacturing facilities will be supplied to India’s patients at affordable cost, which Patel noted as “a big differentiator.”
Amneal would utilize the 80-member industrial group of Puniska Healthcare, which it acquired early this month for rollout of its merchandise in the India market.
Amneal purchased Ahmedabad-based injectable drug maker Puniska for US$ 94 million (Rs 700 crore). Since establishing local operations in 2008, Amneal has established a large and growing presence in India through capital investments and acquisitions totaling more than US$300 million (2,200 crore rupees).
Pricing pressure
It is now aggressively venturing into new spaces and products to keep up with the cutthroat competition in the pharma industry.
It has announced that it is diversifying its product portfolio from generics to complex injectables, different dosage forms, biosimilars, and specialty drugs, going global to market drugs to offset the pricing pressure in the US market.
The company has tied up with Chinese drug maker Fosun Pharma to launch products in the Chinese market. Besides, is scouting for partnership models to enter new geographies like Europe, Africa, and Latin America.
Every year in the US market, the generic drug prices go down at an average of 10-12%, and it is forcing companies like Amneal to abandon certain molecules.
Accordingly, diversification is an excellent way for Amneal to grow and offset tremendous competition in the US, which the companies chief believes to be “very unsustainable.”
“Every year, it is the only market in the world, … (that) lowers the (generic drug) prices from the manufacturers because the buying power is so consolidated, and there’s so many suppliers and mainly coming from India and they just want to sell their product. So they sell it at a very, very cheap price and these guys (buyers) have figured out how to get the cheapest price,” Patel added.
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