India's Zydus sets up Japanese generics unit

Indian health care major, the Zydus Cadila Group, has established Zydus Pharma, a wholly-owned subsidiary to market formulation generics and active pharmaceutical ingredients in Japan.

According to Zydus, its generics arm, which began operating on September 4, will initiate the process for registration of products in 2007 and will also explore collaborations and alliances with Japanese pharmaceutical companies in areas such as joint R&D, co-marketing, contract manufacturing for APIs, intermediates and formulations. These firms would include branded or specialty firms, generic drug firms and pharmaceutical venture companies.

The new unit is headed by Kazuhiro Kawabata as president and headquartered at Shinjuku-ku, in the Japanese capital of Tokyo. According to Zydus, Mr Kawabata has over 30 years experience in the industry, including as managing director of the local unit of a foreign drugmaker.