Sun Pharma Chief Hopes the Worst Is Over For Ranbaxy

NEW DELHI: Sun Pharma would have to do a lot of work to get USFDA to revoke the ban on Ranbaxy facilities but it has not put any time-frame for this, company Chairman Israel Makov said. Sun Pharma's experience dealing with the U.S. health regulator in the past would help it solve Ranbaxy's problems with the regulator, he said in an interview to TV channel. "We hope to do it as soon as possible. We won't put a specific time-line, we have to discuss it with the FDA, we have to do a lot in the field to satisfy its requirements and once we do it, we will have the ban revoked," Makov said.

Sun had a similar situation once in U.S. in its plant and the company got the ban revoked earlier than anybody expected, he added. Sun Pharma had announced that it would fully acquire Ranbaxy in a transaction with a total equity value of $3.2 billion, along with debt of $800million. Makov said Ranbaxy has a serious problem but Sun has proven its ability to remedy any problem that it had encountered in the past. "We are confident that we can do the same with the current problems," he added.

When asked if the company would need just a couple of quarters to resolve the issue, Makov said: "No. The closing of this transaction is going to be somewhere towards the end of this year. Only then we can come in and do whatever needs to do. "So it will take time, it is not a matter of a quarter or two. It will take longer but it is not going to be many years." Makov expressed hope that worst is over for Ranbaxy. "We hope that the worst is over. I think so. We look forward to remedy whatever needs there to remedy and to fix the company and then bring it back to where it should be," he added. When asked about company's acquisition plans in the U.S., Makov said: "We have bought a number of small companies in the U.S. But it depends on an opportunity. We don't set an objective that we have to buy a company in the U.S."

The objective is to grow globally and to have a sustainable profitable growth and to become a more significant player in the industry, he added. The combination of Sun Pharma and Ranbaxy creates the fifth-largest specialty generics company in the world and the largest pharmaceutical company in India. At present, all the four plants of Ranbaxy in India have been banned from exporting drugs to the U.S. market. USFDA had banned imports from Ranbaxy's Toansa plant in January this month for violating current good manufacturing norms. In September last year, the USFDA imposed an import alert on Ranbaxy's Mohali plant in Punjab for violating current good manufacturing norms. Ranbaxy's key facilities at Paonta Sahib in Himachal Pradesh and Dewas in Madhya Pradesh have been under a U.S. import alert since 2008.

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