Merger to create Rs 650 cr entity

MUMBAI, NOV 4: The Indian pharma industry will witness a major major upheaval following the global merger of American Home Products (AHP)...

MUMBAI, NOV 4: The Indian pharma industry will witness a major major upheaval following the global merger of American Home Products (AHP) and Warner-Lambert (WL). The consolidation of Indian companies is expected to result in the birth of a new entity with sales in excess of Rs 650 crore in India.

In India, AHP’s pharma subsidiary, Wyeth Lederle, is currently ranked 19th while Parke Davis (which is 40 per cent owned by Warner Lambert) comes in at number 22. AHP operates through three companies in India. Besides the 50.37 per cent owned Wyeth Lederle, AHP companies include 40 per cent subsidiaries Cyanamid Agro (the demerged agri products arm with brands like Cascade for mite control and Stomp, a herbicide), Geoffrey Manners & Co (brands include Anne French and lubricating oil Chexol) and a wholly-owned arm, ACCO.

Cyanamid Agro and ACCO are believed to be on course to a merger. An analyst with a foreign brokerage claimed that a stake hike to 51 per cent in Parke Davis "now made more sense than ever before".

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Parke-Davis has a manufacturing and research unit at Uppal in Hyderabad (the property at its erstwhile unit at Saki Naka in Mumbai is in the process of being sold), while Wyeth Lederle has two units at Atul (Gujarat) and Ghatkopar in Mumbai. Though there are no major areas of product overlap in the pharmaceutical segment, analysts said the AHP group is likely "to call the shots" in India, given their sales muscle, subsidiary status and slew of newer product launches. Both Wyeth Lederle and Parke Davis have products in the female healthcare segment.

On the products front, popular Parke-Davis brands include Calcal, Pyridium and Ionozem in the gynaec care and cardiac care segments while consumer healthcare brands include Ferradol, Benedryl and Waterbury’s compound. Wyeth Lederle, on the other hand, has launched a range of hi-tech products including the Hibtitter for Hib meningitis, besides Tetramune (for diptheria, whooping cough etc) and Pnu-Imune 23 for pneumococcal diseases. Wyeth Lederle has rationalised a range of non-strategic products recently.

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