Drug maker Aurobindo Pharma is acquiring the domestic formulation business and some assets of Hyderabad-based Veritaz Healthcare in a lump sum sale for £171m.
The acquisition, effective April 1 and expected to close by May, marks Aurobindo Pharma’s foray into the domestic formulations market. Aurobindo’s ability to build a product portfolio alongside Veritaz’s distribution network will help create a significant presence in the domestic pharmaceutical market over the next few years, said Managing Director K. Nithyananda Reddy.
Only Veritaz’s branded generics business will be acquired. No stock or control of Veritaz is intended to be acquired. The addressable market of Veritaz’s product portfolio is approximately £26,775 billion and is an interesting space to grow the business, Aurobindo Pharma said.
The acquisition, which falls under the definition of related party transactions, will serve as a launch pad for commercializing biosimilars and other products in India, Aurobindo Pharma said on Monday.
Veritaz markets approximately 40 brands in the acute and critical care therapeutic segments and has approximately 180 trademarks registered in its name. The biggest brands are Fepanil and the Merogram group, which had sales of around £31bn and £20bn respectively as of December 2021.
Currently, Veritaz serves the anti-infective and pain management therapeutic areas and has a product pipeline for entry into the cardio/diabetes and ortho/gynecology segments. It has an existing sales and distribution network with 900 sales representatives covering more than 50,000 retailers with nearly 1,700 stockists and is present in 23 cities, reaches more than 70,000 doctors and is connected to major hospitals.
Veritaz reported revenue of £1.27 billion in FY21 and generated revenue of £1.33 billion through December of that fiscal year.