INDIA’S biggest biopharmaceutical company Biocon Ltd, which is investing US$200 million (RM668 million) to make insulin in Johor, is joining hands with Chemical Company of Malaysia Bhd (CCM) to sell Insugen in Malaysia early next year.
The state-of-the-art integrated manufacturing facility in Johor is set to boost Bangalore-based Biocon’s production capacity and make it the world’s third largest insulin supplier.
“We started construction on the Malaysian project in mid-2012 and are in the final stages of wrapping up Phase 1 of the project. We have already pumped in US$160 million into the venture,” said Biocon president of marketing, Ravi Limaye.
“Once Phase 1 is operational in the next few months and depending on matching capacity requirements, which are subject to regulatory approvals, we will invest an additional US$40 million in developing Phase 2,” Ravi added.
Health Ministry statistics show that around three million Malaysian adults suffer from diabetes.
“The partnership with Biocon is expected to bring value to Malaysia’s RM70 million insulin market,” said CCM acting chief executive officer Leonard Ariff Abdul Shatar.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Idris Jala, who officiated at the launch of Biocon’s Insugen and Insupen products, here, yesterday, said Malaysia was heavily reliant on imported generic and patented drugs.
Expensive drugs tend to be out of reach for the lower-income households.
Idris lauded Biocon and CCM’s tie-up in supplying generic drugs in the form of biosimilar insulin, saying they were priced affordably and just as effective as patented ones.
Leonard noted that the collaboration with Biocon was accelerating the group’s foray into biosimilars.
In established markets such as the United States and Europe, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi and Eli Lilly enjoy exclusive marketing rights for their insulin products due to strictly enforced intellectual property laws.
As soon as the patents expire, it opens the doors for biosimilar insulins, which are second- generation “copies” of the original insulin products.
Leonard said biosimilars were developed using the same genetic contents and were designed to have the same mechanism of action as the original in terms of safety and efficacy, but priced more affordably.