Following rumours that it has been in talks with Takeda, Indian drugmaker Cipla says it is not selling up but rather wants strategic alliances with other major pharmaceutical firms.
Speaking at the company's annual general meeting in Mumbai, and reported by the Economic Times, Cipla chairman YK Hamied told shareholders that he or his family have no plan to divest their stakes. The newspaper quotes him as saying "we want Cipla's name to grow over and over forever...I can assure you that most of them (reports of a stake sale) are baseless".
Indeed, Mr Hamied was reported in the Wall Street Journal as saying that more likely a scenario is the "creation of strategic alliances and various types of partnerships" to expand in all the emerging markets. He added that "there are areas where we are not very strong, but we have strong products, so we want somebody who's stronger in those areas to market our products there and vice versa".
Cipla, India's second-largest drug firm by market share, has been linked with a host of drug majors, including GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck KGaA and now Takeda. Mr Hamied also revealed that the firm is also investing 6 billion rupees ($130 million) into upgrading five of its Indian facilities.
The views expressed in the following comments are not those of PharmaTimes or any connected third party and belong specifically to the individual who made that comment. We accept no liability for the comments made and always advise users to exercise caution.