Drugmaker Viatris said it was selling its API business in India involving six manufacturing sites, an R&D lab and third party API sales to investment firm IQuest Enterprises, as also divesting its women’s healthcare business, which includes two manufacturing facilities in India, to Spanish multinational Insud Pharma.
Definitive agreements had been signed and both transactions were expected to close in Q1 2024, Viatris said. The drugmaker formed from the November 2020 combination of Mylan and Pfizer’s Upjohn added that it had also agreed to divest rights to women’s healthcare products Duphaston and Femoston to British drugmaker Theramex in a deal that was likely to close in Q4 2023.
The deals to sell the active pharmaceutical ingredients and women’s healthcare businesses would result in gross proceeds of about $1.2B and form part of a $3.6 billion divestment plan, including the sale of certain OTC business to European firm Cooper Consumer Health, according to Viatris, which is headquartered in the U.S. Pittsburgh, Shanghai and Hyderabad host its global centers.
The latest divestitures – earlier this year it had divested the biosimilars business — involve up to 12 facilities and more than 6,000 employees, representing 15% of the company’s global workforce, it said.
IQuest Enterprises, whose chief advisor and patron is serial entrepreneur Nimmagadda Prasad, said it emerged as the preferred investor following a global competitive bid for the API business, which includes three manufacturing facilities each in Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad and an R&D facility in Hyderabad.
A significant part of the team at IQuest Enterprises was involved with some of the present facilities when it was operating as part of Matrix Labs, which was divested in 2006 to Mylan. The present acquisition will mark Mr. Prasad’s return to the pharma industry after a gap of 17 years, it said.
“This will be our largest investment in the pharmaceutical sector till date… comes at a time when India is drawing significant attention amongst global pharma industry,” said IQuest ED Gunupati Swathi Reddy, who is Mr. Prasad’s daughter.
The two manufacturing units in India forming part of the Viatris agreement with Insud Pharma are in Ahmedabad and Sarigam. The women’s healthcare business being divested to the Spanish firm primarily relate to oral and injectable contraceptives.