Biosimilars Market Remains Promising Investment Only in Long Run For Indian Pharma Giants
The key for Indian companies will be to target low-competition products or be a first-wave entrant in the market
Mumbai: Indian generic pharma giants are aggressively pivoting towards the global biosimilar market, particularly in the US and EU, transitioning from generic drugs to complex biologics to drive their next phase of growth. However, looking at their near- and medium-term biosimilar pipeline, analysts believe that they will be late market entrants in highly competitive markets as a result of which biosimilars will contribute meaningfully to profits only in the long run.
Around 118 biologics are set to lose patent protection by 2034, presenting a $ 234 billion biosimilar opportunity.
However, currently only 12 of these biologics have biosimilars in development which are heavily skewed towards high-value products, while low-value products have been largely ignored. While this presents a sizeable opportunity for Indian players to target products that have limited developers currently, patent thickets, lifecycle management and regulatory barriers can impact profitability.
Tausif Shaikh, India analyst (pharma) at BNP Paribas in a report titled Biosimilars – a step in the right direction, but the wait is long said that barring Abatacept, most of the biosimilars in the pipeline like Denosumab, Trastuzumab, Pegfilgrastim, etc have many approved players, and Indian Pharma companies are late entrants.
“We believe that despite the commercial partnerships to market these products, Indian companies will find it difficult to get preferred formulary positions, which would limit their market share. The key for Indian companies will be to target low-competition products or be a first-wave entrant in the market,” said Shaikh.
According to BNP Paribas, while most pharma companies have struck partnerships in the US and EU for better market access, Dr Reddy’s Lab, Aurobindo, Lupin and Zydus have an edge due to their biologics manufacturing capability. Sun Pharma’s proposed Organon & Co’s acquisition gives them commercial infrastructure but no manufacturing capability. Cipla too is behind the curve, with no manufacturing and relying only on partnerships.
