Lotus Pharmaceuticals Co (美時化學製藥), one of the nation’s leading specialty generic drug developers, yesterday gave a positive outlook for this year, setting its sights on the US market for opioid use disorder (OUD) treatments.
The company, which is vying to launch a generic version of buprenorphine and naloxone, a leading agonist treatment for opioid dependence, said that toward the second half of this year, a US court is expected to give its ruling on patent lawsuits initiated by UK-based Indivior PLC, which is marketing the original drug as Suboxone.
The plaintiff’s patent claims are not solid and a favorable ruling is expected, Lotus Pharmaceuticals chairman Andrew Lin (林群) told an investors’ conference, adding that the company is prepared to initiate an “at-risk” launch for the generic treatment despite ongoing lawsuits.
In particular, the company is developing a film version of the OUD treatment that is placed under the tongue or inside the cheek, he said.
As the US Food and Drug Administration approved Sublocade, Indivior’s monthly subcutaneous injection OUD treatment, the British company slowed its litigation against companies making generic versions of Suboxone, Lin said.
The company is also expecting to launch a generic version of Budesonide ER, a corticosteroid indicated for patients with mild to moderate ulcerative colitis, in the final quarter of this year, after gaining a non-infringement ruling against Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc and Cosmo Pharmaceuticals NV, which are marketing the original drug as Uceris, he said.
The drug is expected to launch after Valeant’s 180-day exclusivity period ends, allowing the company to tap into a US$190 million market in the US, he said.
Meanwhile, the company has overhauled its goodwill and intangible assets portfolio as it continues to book impairment charges in an effort to reduce risks ahead, Lotus Pharmaceutical executive assistant Nadiya Chen (陳萩雅) said.
The amount of the impairment charges has been cut from NT$500 million (US$17.12 million) in 2016 to about NT$140 million last year, Chen said.
The company reaped gains from cross-region commercial synergies with affiliates of US-based Alvogen and its Asia-based affiliates, which helped lower its operating-to-expense ratio to a record 40 percent, it said.
Efforts to refinance debt have also cut annual interest expenses, Chen said.
As the global generic drug market has undergone significant changes since 2016, with many industry giants such as Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd and Perrigo Co experiencing precipitous declines, the company is to continue its strategy of specializing in the segment of complex, high-barrier and small-volume products that have high average selling prices, Chen said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained