India's Eris Lifesciences to extend its product offering to insulins and GLP1 agonists

Eris Lifesciences (BSE: 540596) is foraying into an oligopolistic insulin market with its own insulin brand this month.

It had announced its entry into India’s $465 million to $531 million insulin and GLP1 agonists market early December through Eris MJ Biopharm, a special purpose joint venture between Eris and Mumbai-based MJ Biopharm.

The business of the joint venture is to be kick-started with the launch of human insulin. The 70:30 joint venture aims to leverage the market opportunity in human insulin, analogues and GLP1, and will primarily engage in marketing and distribution of human and analogue insulin including aspart, glargine and lispro as well as GLP-1 agonists (eg, liraglutide) and potentially other biopharma products in India.

Eris, one of India’s leading players in the oral diabetes care segment, is to extend its product offering to GLP1 agonists since these categories comprise 61% of the anti-diabetes market in the USA, whereas their penetration is just 21% in India. This low penetration is largely on account of the limited number of suppliers in the Indian market.

Market dominated by likes of Sanofi and Novo Nordisk