Daiichi Sankyo and affiliate Ranbaxy restructure global R&D

Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo and its 64% owned Indian affiliate Ranbaxy Laboratories, as a part of its strategy to strengthen their global R&D structure, have transferred Ranbaxy's New Drug Discovery Research unit into its Daiichi Sankyo India Pharma R&D unit.

The transaction has been approved by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. The new organization, Daiichi Sankyo Life Science Research Center in India (RCI), based in Gurgaon, will play a key role in the group's global drug discovery research - to create promising new drugs, especially in the area of low-molecular weight infectious and inflammatory disease treatments. RCI will also continue to support the programs of dengue and tuberculosis that NDDR was working on in alliance with the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Since October 2008, when Ranbaxy joined the Daiichi Sankyo group, the companies have cooperated on R&D. By incorporating NDDR into the global research function, the group would benefit from more efficient global R&D, as also achieve quicker results, the Japanese firm claims.