Teva stretches lead in generics
pharmafile | November 5, 2003 | News story | Sales and Marketing |
Teva has agreed to acquire US generics company Sicor for $3.4 billion and increased its third quarter profits 63%, led by buoyant US sales and strong performance from Copaxone.
The purchase of Sicor will consolidate Teva's lead as the world's largest generics manufacturer and extend its reach for the first time into the profitable US market for injectable generic drugs.
Based in Israel, Teva combines its generics business with new products based on its own R&D. The company's biggest earner is its own patent-protected product Copaxone, a treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, which increased its global sales in the quarter by 25% to $180 million.
The drug's strong performance and the launch of 14 new products over the last year helped boost third quarter profits to $157 million. These included Amox/Clav (its version of GSK blockbuster antibiotic Augmentin) and chemotherapy drug Purinethol, which the company received as a settlement agreement from GSK following a legal dispute.
Israel Makov, Teva's president and chief executive, said: "These results are complimented by our strongest US pipeline ever, representing brand sales of over $55 billion, as well as our growing pipeline elsewhere."
The company has recently filed applications in the US and Europe for rasagiline, a new treatment for Parkinson disease as part of a global co-development and European marketing alliance between by Teva and Lundbeck. In the US Teva and Eisai will co-promote the drug.
Teva's product pipeline will be further increased by the acquisition of Sicor, which makes drugs for cancer, pain relief, kidney problems and anaesthesia.
Sicor has a biopharmaceutical plant in Mexico and recombinant protein manufacturing facilities in Lithuania that produces biogenerics, including a version of human growth hormone that is set to be one of the first biogenerics approved in the US and Europe.
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