India's Dr Reddy's beats rivals with 480M-euro bid for betapharm of Germany

The contest to acquire Betapharm Arzneimittel, Germany's fourth-largest generic drugs company, has been won by India's Dr Reddy's Laboratories. Other Indian contenders for the firm had been Ranbaxy Laboratories, Wockhardt and Nicholas Piramal (Marketletter November 21, 2005).

Betapharm has been sold to Dr Reddy's for 480.0 million euros ($573.6 million) by UK-based 3i, which acquired the firm from Hexel for around 300.0 million euros (Marketletter March 15, 2004), before Hexel itself was taken over by Swiss drug major Novartis (Marketletter February 28, 2005). The sale includes the not-for-profit Beta Institute.

This is said to be the largest acquisition ever made by an Indian pharmaceutical company. Dr Reddy's, whose current cash reserves are only $160.0million, will need to raise 400.0 million euros to fund the acquisition, reported the Indian Financial Express.