French drugmaker Servier firms up India focus with manufacturing tie-ups, trial plans
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. French pharmaceutical group Servier is sharpening its India strategy with a string of new oncology launches focused on rare cancers, plans for local manufacturing of active ingredients, and a move to bring global clinical trials to the country for the first time. The shift marks a significant elevation of India in Servier’s global priorities, aligning it almost in step with launches in the western markets.
“Our forecast in terms of development is that we'll be able to steadily grow our historical cardiovascular-metabolism-diabetes portfolio, and we'll be able to scale up drastically in oncology, meaning the share of India by itself within the group is going to increase," Aurelien Breton, managing director of Servier India told Mint in an interview. The company recently got market authorization from the Indian drug regulator for its drug Vorasidenib (Voranigo), a first-in-class, oral therapy for adults or children over 12 with grade-2 gliomas or types of brain cancer, with specific genetic mutations. The product will be commercially available in the next few months, said Breton.
Notably, the approval in India came only a few weeks after Europe and just over a year after the product was launched in the US. “What is great is we are coming only one year after the US, whereas for many innovations, India is often years and years behind," Breton said. Voranigo follows two other India launches over the past year: Onivyde for metastatic pancreatic cancer and Tibsovo that treats cholangiocarcinoma, a form of gastric cancer, and certain types of blood cancer.
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