Sun Pharma inks pact with ICGEB for dengue drug Cipa

Sun Pharma has signed a pact with International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (ICGEB) and DBT to develop a new dengue drug Cipa. Despite large number of dengue cases, no treatment drug is available for the disease. Cipa will help in treating about millions of people infected by dengue every year, says Kirti Ganorkar, Senior VP - Business Development & Portfolio Management at Sun Pharma. Before widening reach to other countries, Sun Pharma will conduct clinical trials in India in the first phase. Post this only, the company will go to US FDA for approval, Ganorkar says. The drug will hit Indian market in next four years if the clinical trials are a success.Below is the verbatim transcript of Kirti Ganorkar’s interview with Prerna Baruah of CNBC-TV18.Q: Can you give us the details about this new drug that you will be launching soon?A: Today Sun Pharma has signed an agreement with International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) and DBT to develop a new drug for dengue and this drug is called CIPA. CIPA is a botanical drug which will be used in the treatment of dengue. As you are aware there are no treatments for dengue. There are large number of cases of dengue being reported in India as well as worldwide but there is no treatment available. So, Sun Pharma has taken the first step to identify CIPA as a potential candidate as a treatment of dengue.Q: So, what is the market size for this botanical dengue drug at this point in time?A: Let us not look at market size in terms of - it is a new drug which we have been developing but you should look at the incidents or infection of dengue which are reported in various journals in India as well as outside India. Just to give as an example World Health Organisation (WHO) says that 50 percent of Indian population is at a risk of dengue. And then there is an article in nature which says that there are about 400 million cases of dengue being reported worldwide out of which close to 35 percent is from India.So, the incidence of dengue infection in India can be anywhere between 7.5 million to 34 million. So, this becomes your potential market if you are able to bring the drug successfully.Q: After this is launched here in Indian market would you look to expand this or introduce this drug in the other markets as well?A: This is a global program but we will go step wise. First we will do some clinical studies on CIPA in India. Looking at that data we will go to other agencies which include US FDA and European agencies and discuss them with the regulatory path for approval of dengue treatment. As you know this is a botanical drug and that is going to treat dengue. So, we need to know the regulatory path for approval of this drug.So, what we are thinking at Sun Pharma is something very unique. We will do all the clinical trials and pre-clinical trials for approval of CIPA like new chemical entities. So, it will be developed like new chemical entities based on science. So, we will do clinical studies which are like controlled studies which is usually done for new chemical entities. The difference between the new chemical entity and this botanical drug is this is a botanical drug. It is a mix of so many compounds and the new chemical entity is like a purified version.