Biopharmaceutical major Biocon said Monday that wholly-owned subsidiary Biocon Pharma has partnered with Brazilian firm Libbs Pharmacutica to unveil generic drugs in Brazil, the world’s sixth-most populous country.
As part of the out-licensing deal, the Biocon arm will be responsible for drug development and manufacturing, while Libbs will leverage its expertise to import and distribute and market, subject to approval from Brazilian health regulator ANVISA.
A Biocon release said that the partnership, which marks the entry of Biocon’s general formulations into Latin America, sought to build a successful collaboration with Libs starting in 2017 to start the biosimilar trastuzumab in Brazil.
Biocon CEO and MD Siddharth Mittal said that “expanding our collaboration with Libbs Pharmacutica to our general formulations will help us establish a firm in Latin America starting with Brazil.”
Commercial head-global generics, Abhijeet Zutshi said that this partnership builds Biocon’s capability to phase out its portfolio of complex and differentiated APIs.