Stada Arz and Richter link up to develop and market two biosimilars: rituximab and trastuzumab

Germany’s Stada Arzneimittel (SAZ: GR) and Hungarian group Gedeon Richter (BDP: RICHTER) have signed two separate license and collaboration agreements for the development and marketing of two biosimilar products for the two monoclonal antibodies - rituximab and trastuzumab.

Rituximab is Swiss drug major Roche’s (ROG: SXI) best-selling Rituxan/MabThera for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia as well as rheumatoid arthritis, which contributed 3.06 billion Swiss francs ($3.77 billion in first half 2011 sales, and a copy of which is already under development by Sandoz (The Pharma Letter January 11). Trastuzumab is Roche’s breast cancer drug Herceptin, which had first half turnover of 2.72 billion francs. The Swiss firm recently entered into a three-year agreement with R-Farm to market the drug in Russia, where the oncology drug market is estimated at $4-$5 billion a year at present (TPL June 23).

Rights cover Europe and CIS