Venus Remedies announced the signing of a deal with Korean pharma giant Goodwills for the exclusive marketing rights of Elores, a novel antibiotic adjuvant entity. Venus has inked this deal after the grant of a patent by the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) of the Republic of South Korea.
The South Korean major is planning to launch this product in mid 2014 post regulatory approval from Korean FDA for which the dossier is already under evaluation. Bridging clinical trials on the Korean population are being conducted in six leading hospitals of Seoul, the capital city of South Korea.
Pawan Chaudhary, CMD Venus Remedies said, “Patent grant from CIPRO is testimony to the merits of Elores and we are confident that our partnership with Goodwills Korea shall take our research product to its meaningful stage in South Korea. Goodwills will have exclusive marketing rights of the product till validity of its patent in year 2025.”
After Adcock Ingram, a manufacturer and distributor of healthcare product from South Africa, this is Venus Remedies’ second deal this year for out licensing its research products.
Elores is an antibiotic product meant for multidrug resistant infections in ICU, specially in hospital acquired infections where the rise in resistance is reported to the extent of >70 per cent in Asia Pacific region. This product is also reportedly unique in its mode of action in that it not only kills resistant pathogens (bacteria) but also prevents the spread of resistance.
As per Dr Manu Chaudhary, Director- Research – VMRC, JMD Venus Remedies, “Elores is addressing a huge unmet medical need and in South Korean market at such point of time, it can prove to be all the more significant for society at large”.
South Korea has very high rates of ESBL producing gram negative infections, as high as 40 per cent. Almost 52 per cent of K pneumonia isolates from South Korea are multi drug resistant and producing common ESBL’s to which Elores exhibits excellent efficacy.
The increasing prevalence of resistance among other gram negative pathogens to commonly used antibiotics is a major concern for the entire Asia Pacific region. According to a recent surveillance study in South Korea increasing prevalence to last resort drugs such as Meropenem and Colistin is drastic and has increased by more than 18 fold in the last three years.
Venus will supply Elores out of its state-of-art manufacturing facility at Baddi accredited with GMP from EU, PIC, TGA and many more. The company has recently launched Elores in India and received an encouraging response. The company is also in talks with international pharma companies in regulated markets for strategic tie-ups for Elores.
EP News Bureau – Mumbai