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Ranbaxy, Cipla agree to co-market ciprofloxacin

BS Bureaux

Ranbaxy Laboratories and Cipla, two of the country's leading pharma firms, on Tuesday announced an alliance to co-market the former's once-a-day formulation of ciprofloxacin. The formulation had received Drug Controller General of India's approval for local marketing recently.

The companies would be marketing the product under their brand names -- Cifran OD (Ranbaxy) and Ciplox OD (Cipla). Ranbaxy would manufacture both the products.

This dosage form of the broad-spectrum anti-bacterial is from Ranbaxy's novel drug delivery systems (NDDS) research pipeline.

Brian W Tempest, president - pharmaceuticals, Ranbaxy, said: "The alliance will be a win-win situation for both the companies, enabling to leverage our combined marketing prowess and extensive distribution network. We are keen that the benefits of ciprofloxacin OD in terms of convenience and better patient compliance should percolate to the maximum number of doctors and patients."

Amar Lulla, joint managing director, Cipla, said: "The spirit of co-operation, started a few years ago between Cipla and Ranbaxy, has now been strengthened with the ciprofloxacin OD agreement.

Together, both our brands account for over 30 per cent of the ciprofloxacin market and thus we will be in a better position to convert the market towards the once-daily concept in this fragmented segment."

In the last one month, the market capitalisation of pharma firms has witnessed an all-round increase. While Cipla rose 15.35 per cent to Rs 73.79 billion from Rs 63.97 billion, Dr Reddy's Labs went up 13.90 per cent to Rs 69.12 billion from Rs 60.68 billion and Ranbaxy Labs rose 12.31 per cent to Rs 68.75 billion from Rs 61.21 billion.

Analysts said the rise is mostly due to the change in the market focus from IT stocks to defensive stocks. Further, pharma companies have not only shown resistance to the economic slowdown, but have progressed too.

Exports have led the better performances of some of these companies.

Dr Reddy's, for instance, in the quarter ended 30 June 2001, registered a 173 per cent rise in net to Rs 535 million led by exports.

Cipla posted a 14 per cent rise in its first-quarter net to Rs 444 million, Ranbaxy net rose 22 per cent to Rs 493 million in Q2 ended June 2001, while Wockhardt notched up an impressive 71 per cent rise in Q2 ended June 2001 net profit to Rs 227 million.

However, as per market talk, the much-awaited relaxation of the Drug Price Control Order, supposed to bring down the number of drugs under price control, is likely to be delayed.

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