Cipla looks out for marketing tie-up with Novartis

MUMBAI: Cipla, and Novartis are looking at the possibilities to jointly market asthma drug Xolair (omalizumab) an injectable prescription medicine used to treat moderate to severe persistent asthma in patients whose symptoms are not controlled by inhaled corticosteroids.

Lately Novartis has been exploring possibility of divesting its respiratory portfolio and many prominent Indian generic drug makers such as Lupin, Cipla, Zydus Cadila and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries are in look out to grab any such opportunity .

Economic Times reports that Cipla had been engaged in a legal battle with Novartis since 2014 over selling of generic version of the drug Onbrez (indacaterol) being produced by Novartis, which it lost in the Delhi High Court.

Such marketing arrangement and tie-ups between companies are very common and often formed to control each other’s distribution networks. Cipla, which is one of the oldest domestic pharmaceutical companies, is a leader in respiratory drug market in India’s netting Rs 8,500 crore.

It has a strong and well established distribution network that would be hard to be imitated. When all the legal formalities are complete an announcement to this effect shall be made which may take about a months time, sources aware of the development informed ET.