New Delhi, Dec 6: Panacea Biotec is looking to scale up its existing product portfolio, develop new medications and foray into new markets as part of its long-term growth plans, according to a top company official.
The company, which reported consolidated loss after tax from continuing operations at Rs 172.46 crore last fiscal, said it has in place a detailed strategic plan to achieve significant growth in near-term, medium-term and long-term.
“The key growth drivers would include scaling up of the existing products and launch of new products and penetrating into newer markets in both vaccines and pharmaceutical formulations business,” Panacea Biotec Chairman Soshil Kumar Jain informed shareholders in the company’s Annual Report for 2019-20.
The company continues its focus on vaccines as a core therapy segment and believes in its purpose of rendering long term protection from preventable diseases, he noted.
“As a part of the long-term growth strategy, we are now expanding sales of hexavalent vaccine EasySix in India and have initiated registrations in international markets with having received marketing authorisation in two countries,” Jain said.
He said that the company has registered its vaccines in around 16 countries with further registrations in around nine countries expected in the near future.
“We also have in our pipeline of innovative vaccines including Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine, Recombinant Tetravalent Dengue Candidate Vaccine -DengiAll and Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine,” Jain said.
During the current financial year, Panacea has successfully completed Phase I/II clinical trials of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (Nucovac) and dengue vaccine in the country, he added.
In June this year, the company has already announced setting up a joint venture firm in Ireland with US-based Refana Inc to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.
As per the partnership, Panacea Biotec will be responsible for product development and commercial manufacturing, while the JV entity undertaking clinical development and regulatory submissions across the world. Both Panacea and Refana will undertake sales and distribution of the vaccine in their respective territories
For the 2019-20 fiscal, the company’s vaccine business segment registered a turnover of Rs 140.4 crore.
The Indian vaccine market was estimated to be around Rs 9,500 crore in 2019.
During the year under review, the company has transferred its pharmaceutical formulations business including related research & development and natural products extraction activities to its wholly-owned subsidiary Panacea Biotec Pharma Ltd.
The process of getting the product registration/marketing authorisation with respect to the international business transferred to Panacea Biotec Pharma is currently in progress out of which product registration/ marketing authorisation for key products in key markets has already been received, the company said.
In the long term, the company aims to launch more abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) in the US market, introduce products in the EU and Japanese markets in addition to expanding the product portfolio in domestic and emerging markets, it added. (PTI)
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