Dr Reddy's Laboratories, one of India's largest manufacturers of generic medicines, is the latest Indian company working on putting in a bid for a major European company - the generics arm of German pharmaceuticals giant Merck.
"We will take a look at it and then decide," G.V. Prasad, Dr Reddy's vice-chairman and chief executive officer, told The Times here. He added that any bid from Dr Reddy's would be as part of a consortium, most likely backed by private equity."We don't have the size to do it on our own," Prasad, who was on a visit to London, told the newspaper.
Merck is reported to have said in January that it was considering a sale of its generic drugs business to help pay for its Euro 10.5 billion (7 billion pounds) acquisition in September of Serono, the Swiss biotechnology group.
A sale of the Merck Generics unit, which is believed to be worth between Euro 3 billion and Euro 4 billion, would allow Merck to concentrate on its core prescription pharmaceuticals business.
The Times said that Merck Generics had sales in over 90 countries and was the third-largest generics business in the world. In 2005 it reported sales of Euro 1.8 billion and operating profits of Euro 238 million. It employed approximately 5,000 people.
Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy's already owns a small European generics business. "We see the potential to grow that quite significantly," Prasad told the newspaper.
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Globally, the company had sales of $546 million (278 million pounds) in 2006 and is India's second-largest pharmaceutical company after Delhi-based Ranbaxy Laboratories.
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Prasad said that Indian generics businesses were likely to "play a very important role" in the development of the global generic medicines industry.
"India offers a vibrant chemical industry and the costs of manufacturing and infrastructure are still much lower," he told the paper.
Source-IANS
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