Date:06/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/10/06/stories/2007100652170200.htm

Back Panacea Biotec in pact to sell vaccines in Philippines

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Oct. 5 Panacea Biotec has signed an agreement with a Philippines chain of clinics, Family Vaccines, for supply of their combination vaccines.

The vaccines, under the umbrella of Panacea’s ‘Easy Vaccines’, will be available through a chain of 50 immunisation clinics in the Philippines.

The memorandum of understanding was signed between Mr Rajesh Jain, Joint Managing Director, Panacea Biotec, and Mr Jaime Enrique Gonzalez, Managing Director, Family Vaccines, at a CII event in Mumbai on Friday.

The vaccine maker has partnered with WHO and UNICEF under the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) for more than a decade. The Philippines, it said in a statement, has a birth cohort of around 2.5 million with an EPI immunisation coverage of about 80 per cent. The global vaccine market is expected to top $10 billion in 2007 and $23.8 billion in 2012.

Focus areas

“While fully liquid DTP combos would be the arena of focus to start the partnership with Family Vaccine, it would eventually work towards introduction of Polprotec (IPV) and its combination vaccines. With a very strong, innovative product pipeline in immunisation, Panacea Biotec is all set to venture into global markets,” said Mr Jain.

The company recently inaugurated a Rs 100-crore vaccine production plant at Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, with a capacity of more than 1 billion doses per annum, to cater to the domestic and global markets.

Family Vaccines is an affiliate of Intellectual Property Ventures Group from Philippines with an interest in IT, business consulting, banking, and healthcare.