Strides to spin off API business in India, keep other plants for new B2C focus

India’s Strides Shasun has decided to radically remake itself, focusing on a consumer formulations business it will call Strides Pharma and spinning or selling off all of its commodity API manufacturing.

On Friday, the Bangalore-based company announced as part of its restructuring that it will spin off its commodity API business in India into what it claims will be one of the largest stand-alone API makers in India. The as-yet-unnamed business will have five manufacturing facilities, three of which are FDA approved. It will also include the human drug manufacturing facility of SeQuent Scientific, which bought into Shasun several years ago. SeQuent also has a veterinary drug business.  

Strides Pharma will be divided into two divisions, a “regulated markets” division focused on the U.S., U.K. and Australia, and one focused on emerging markets, primarily India and Africa.

The regulated markets operation will be served by four FDA-approved manufacturing facilities in India, Europe and one under construction in Singapore. Its goal will be to submit 25 ANDAs a year.

It said most of the APIs for those drugs are expected to come from an API plant in Ambernath, Maharashtra, India that Strides Shasun agreed in December to buy from Perrigo. Perrigo agreed to sell the plant, valued at $42.6 million, for INR 1000 million ($14.8 million). Strides will continue to produce some of Perrigo’s products at the plant, which it will supply to Perrigo under a long-term agreement. The deal is expected to close by the end of March.

The emerging markets division will produce drugs for both the consumer markets in Africa and India and “donor funded programs.” It said an “In Africa for Africa” manufacturing strategy will be consolidated into the Universal Corp. Kenya facility it picked up last year when it paid $14 million to buy a 51% stake in the Kenyan business. It said branded generics and donor-funded drugs will be produced there and that the plant will be “upgraded to global standards.” It said six generic facilities Strides already had in Africa will be sold to the management team now operating that business for an expected $16 million.

“The foundation for Strides Shasun Version 2.0 has been laid through all the building blocks put in place by the company over the last couple of years,” the company said in a statement. “This has given the company critical size and helped position itself as a well-diversified, fully integrated, consumer facing formulations player with a bias towards regulated markets.”