US drug transnational Eli Lilly, which thus far was slow on launching its major drugs in India owing to inadequate patent protection, is now gearing up to launch a new drug every year.
Eli Lilly & Co (India) chairman and managing director Rajiv Gulati said, "Thus far we did not launch many of our products because of inadequate patent protection here. However, post-2005 this will change. We are planning to launch a new drug every year for the next five-six years. Having already launched our sepsis drug Xigris recently, we are now planning to launch two more drugs - Forteo and Cialis - in India in 2004."
The company is the largest in India in terms of clinical research and the 46th in terms of sales, but its plan will change all that now.
Forteo is a drug for combating osteoporosis, a disease in which bones become porous and are prone to fractures (especially in women after menopause).
The second drug, Cialis, is for erectile dysfunction. Gulati claims Cialis is much more effective than the popular Viagra drug, as its effect lasts for almost 24 hours after intake.
The effect of Viagra, on the other hand, starts two hours after imbibing and is effective for three hours.
Eli Lilly, which has been on the lookout for an alliance partner to market Cialis, is in talks with two leading Indian companies, and will seal a deal in six to eight months, Gulati said.
The change in the company's India-stance is indicative of the growing confidence of multinational pharma companies operating in India, which were so long apprehensive to launch their major products still under patent protection in their own countries.
Currently, the pharma industry only has process patents in place, which allows some Indian companies to copy existing molecules, and reproduce the same drug using a different process by means of retro-engineering.
Eli Lilly last week slashed the prices of its human insulin drug, Huminsulin, by 33 per cent to Rs 145 a vial from Rs 218 earlier.
Huminsulin, a genetically-produced humanised insulin, is now competitively priced against animal insulin drugs available in India, which are priced around Rs 140 a vial.
Gulati had said that the price reduction was achieved through localised production of the drug at the company's Halol plant in Gujarat, which was initially set up to export to Russia. The drug was so long being imported from France.
Eli Lilly's anti-diabetics drugs currently contribute 35 per cent to the company's revenue. Gulati, however, expects an improvement in overall sales of the drug which will make up for the shortfall in revenue owing to the price cut.