SPARC lights up

SPARC or Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company is in the limelight today. Figuring intermittently in the top five gainers list on the BSE, the stock price opened with a gain of over 6% at Rs.151.40 and rose to an intraday high at Rs.159.90, going up more than 12%.

Yesterday, after market hours the company announced that it will now be able to introduce some of its cancer treatment drugs in China as its subsidiary, China Medical System Holdings Limited, has been granted exclusive licenses for 5 products.

Sun Pharma will be responsible for development, regulatory filings and manufacturing of the drugs covered in the deal, while AstraZeneca will exclusively promote and distribute the products in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

The initial term of the agreement shall be 20 years from the date of first commercial sale of each product in the territory and may be further extended as per mutual agreement between the parties.

As per the agreement, SPARC is eligible to receive upfront payment, milestone payments and royalty on net sales of the products in territories.

And in another news, almost in the same vein, parent company, Sun Pharma announced that Britain’s AstraZeneca would distribute some of Sun’s cancer treatment drugs in China. As per the licensing agreement, Sun will be responsible for development, regulatory filings and manufacturing of the drugs, while AstraZeneca will exclusively promote and distribute the products in China.

Financial terms of the agreement, which has an initial tenure of 10 years, were not disclosed.

For AstraZeneca, this comes closely on the heels of its announcement made recently that it was launching a new fund with China International Capital Corp to invest $1 billion in China’s healthcare sector, as it expands its research work in the country.