Pharma, Startups

Former Ranbaxy execs build NJ startup to help Indian, European drugs enter U.S. market

A cadre of former execs at Indian generic drugmaker Ranbaxy’s US branch quit last month […]

A cadre of former execs at Indian generic drugmaker Ranbaxy’s US branch quit last month and have launched a startup in New Jersey. Called Bion Pharma, it will help Indian and European drugmakers expand receive regulatory clearance and distribution rights in the world’s largest drug market – the USA. Economic Times reports:

The top team of Bion Pharma, the new venture, includes former Ranbaxy US unit CEO Venkat Krishnan, its ex-CFO Gaurav Mehrotra, sales head Bill Winter, legal head Lavesh Samtani and supply chain head Phanindranath Punji. The venture will be based in Princeton, New Jersey, where Ranbaxy’s headquarters too are situated. 

The ex-Ranbaxy team will build on its experience of handling the many regulatory setbacks that the Indian generics maker faced in America.

“The core team collectively possesses more than 10 decades of varied experience and has navigated through some very excruciating circumstances, including enforcement actions, import alerts and other similar hurdles,” CEO Krishnan told ET.

Bear in mind:

Over the past eight years, all but one of Ranbaxy’s plants were barred from importing medicines to the US and the company had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars as fines as it pleaded guilty to manufacturing malpractices and other misdemeanours. Amid all its woes, the company also managed to launch the generic version of two blockbuster drugs — Pfizer’s Lipitor and Novartis’ Diovan — under a six-month exclusivity window and operations at the US plant remained functional.

 “We will be discriminating in our choice of partners and will only take on players who are willing to follow the rules and meet the expectations of the US market,” CEO Krishnan told the Economic Times. “Our strategy is to have partners with whom we can work on a portfolio of products rather than pick and choose products.”

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