Takeda's partners relieved their worries

Copyright agreement with Donga, Green Cross, HK Inno.N, Jeil, etc.

Celltrion's official position is to "maintain until the end of the existing co-promotion agreement."

Domestic partner companies are nervous as Takeda officially sells its business units.

 

As Celltrion decided to maintain a co-sales contract for 18 items that take over copyrights, immediate changes were avoided, but it may be difficult to maintain copyrights after changing partners.

 

According to the industry on the 15th, Celltrion is expected to maintain joint sales cooperation with domestic partners for the time being even after Takeda's acquisition of the Primary Care Division (PC BU) in Asia Pacific.

 

Celltrion has agreed to take over all rights, including patents, trademarks, licenses, and sales rights from 18 brands, including Rx drugs and over-the-counter drugs, from Takeda, and to take over the rights to co-promotion (co-sales).

 

The 18 types that Celltrion will take over are 12 Rx items including 'Nesina', ‘Actos', ' Edarbi', ' Madipine', 'Basen', 'Ubretid', 'Condilin', 'Gutron', 'Zafatek’, ‘Blopress’, ‘Rozerem’, and ‘ Doribax’ and 6 OTC such as ‘Whituben’, ‘Whituben Nasal spray’, ‘Albothyl’, ‘Majesto’, ‘Nebramine’, and ‘Calcichew’ In Korean subsidiaries, five specialized medicines such as 'Nesina', 'Actos', 'Bason', 'Edarbi', and 'Madipine' in distribution in Korea and OTC items such as ‘Whituben’, ‘Whituben Nasal spray’, ‘Albothyl’, are included in the scope of this contract.

 

All are products that are entangled in a co-promotional relationship with other domestic companies such as Jeil Pharm, Dong-A ST, Green Cross, andHK Inno.N in the domestic distribution and sales process.

 

(Clockwise from top left) Actos, Nesina, Edarbi, Whituben & Madipine

Jeil Pharm is in charge of sales for 'Nesina', the diabetes treatment drug with the largest sales.

 

The two companies have maintained a cooperative relationship for 7 years since they were renewed once after the first contract in 2013.

 

'Nesina' product line, such as 'Nesina', a single drug of the DPP-4 inhibitor, 'Nesina act', and 'Nesinamet', is a large-scale product that combines outpatient prescriptions of ₩35.1 billion based on UBIST last year.

 

Dong-A ST has been jointly selling ARB-based hypertension treatment 'Edarbi' and 'Edarbyclor' as a combination drug since August 2017.

 

Outpatient prescriptions amount for 'Idalbi' and 'Idalbiclo' last year were ₩8.8 billion.

 

Green Cross is in charge of domestic sales and distribution of 'Whituben', a cold medicine, which is highly recognized among consumers, and 'Albothyl', a canker sore treatment.

 

In the case of 'Bason' for diabetes treatment and 'Madipine' for hypertension treatment, the outpatient prescription amount was ₩4 billion and ₩2 billion, respectively, as of last year.

 

It is somewhat complicated.

 

For these partners, they have no choice but to pay attention to the news of the drug sale.

 

In fact, since the sale of the Takeda Pharmaceuticals PC division in Korea in the second half of last year, the inquiries from partners to confirm its authenticity have been reported.

 

After Celltrion's merger and acquisition (M&A) contract, the partners were tense, saying that Takeda retained the existing contract relationship.

 

The immediate change to the copyright agreement was avoided.

 

However, it may be difficult to re-contract after the contract expires.

 

In the pharmaceutical industry, there are also cases where the co-promotional contract relationship, which usually takes place every 5 years, ends prematurely.

 

An official from Celltrion said, “For 18 items, Takeda will also take over all the rights related to co-promotion.

 

After the contract expires, they will decide whether to re-contract by reviewing the use of marketing organization.” An official from a partner company in Korea said, "We received a notice that even a co-promotional contract is included in the M&A terms, and since the terms and conditions of the contract are all the same, there will be no immediate impact, but we believe that the long-term changes will have to be watched." Another domestic partner said, "It is difficult to judge the specific impact right away because the specific conditions between the contracting parties are unknown.

 

The situation is carefully monitored until the acquisition procedure is completed."