Aurobindo Pharma Arm Signs Agreement With Drug Patent Pool To Create Anti-Cancer Drug

Aurobindo Pharma said on Friday that Eugia Pharma Specialities Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary, has signed a voluntary sub-licensing deal with Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) to develop and sell an anti-cancer medicine.

Aurobindo Pharma said in a regulatory filing that the sub-licensing arrangement for Nilotinib capsules, originally created by Novartis, would be in 44 low and middle-income countries (LMIC), including the seven countries where patents on the medicine are either pending or in effect.

Chronic myeloid leukemia is treated with nilotinib pills.

The first sub-licensing agreements for a cancer therapy that will be made accessible in the LMIC under this licence have been signed by MPP. Our position in the market for generic oncology drugs would be further strengthened with the addition of this medication to the Aurobindo Pharma oncology portfolio, according to K Nithyananda Reddy, vice chairman and managing director of the company.

He said, “We are eager to begin supplying the product at the earliest opportunity and to assist in lowering the risk of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in specific patients.”

The medicine would be manufactured at Eugia Pharma Specialities Ltd. Unit-I, Medchal, in Telangana, according to the business, which also said that it has the capacity to satisfy the product’s demand throughout the licensed region on a worldwide scale.

Eugia, Hetero, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, and BrightGene, three Indian pharmaceutical companies, have inked sub-licensing agreements with MPP to produce generic copies of Nilotinib from Novartis.

These are the first sub-licensing agreements MPP has signed for a cancer therapy and were made possible by a licence deal struck in October 2022 between MPP and Novartis Pharma AG for a patented cancer drug, according to a statement from MPP.

“We are thrilled to be working with these four generic manufacturers to develop generic Nilotinib and bring an affordable treatment option to people diagnosed with CML in these countries,” MPP Executive Director Charles Gore stated.

“At MPP, we are committed to demonstrating that voluntary licensing is a truly effective method of providing accessible treatments to address the steadily rising cancer burden in LMICs.”

Egypt, Guatemala, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Tunisia are the seven middle-income nations with active or pending patents on the product.