Dr Reddy’s sells antibiotic facility in US

​Hyderabad: Dr Reddy’s Laboratories on Monday announced the closure of the sale of its antibiotic manufacturing facility and related assets in Bristol, Tennessee to Neopharma Inc., a subsidiary of the UAE’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer headquartered in Abu Dhabi, for an undisclosed sum.  

Under the deal, Dr Reddy’s sold all the issued and outstanding membership interests in Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Tennessee, LLC and certain related assets. “This sale is in line with our stated priority to streamline and optimize our global cost structures and help us focus on other business priorities to drive growth," said Erez Israeli, Chief Operating Officer for Dr. Reddy’s. 

Suresh Nandiraju, COO of Neopharma Inc., said, “This acquisition is synergetic and will strengthen our product portfolio for driving long-term, sustainable growth by leveraging our global presence.” The plant and associated facilities focus on manufacturing or packaging amoxicillin-based products, which include a semi-synthetic penicillin. 

The 390,000-square-foot facility is dedicated to secondary oral-solid dose penicillin manufacturing/packaging and includes processing, packaging, development, printing, and warehouse spaces. A separate 24,000-square-foot plastics-processing facility in Bristol is also included in the transaction.

Meanwhile, the company announced the termination of the license granted to Armis Biopharma, Inc. (formerly known as CHD Bioscience, Inc.) for its investigational antibacterial product, DFA-02, for the prophylaxis of surgical site infections (SSIs).

As a result of the termination, Dr Reddy's has regained worldwide rights to DFA-02 and is currently evaluating its options to take the program forward.

DFA-02 is a combination, broad spectrum antibacterial in situ gel which is being investigated for the prophylaxis of SSIs as an adjunct to conventional preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis. DFA-02 has been studied in several phase 1 and 2 clinical studies and has demonstrated clinical efficacy in several key segments of patients who were at high risk for SSIs.