Chinese pharmaceutical company Novast Holdings (Novast) has entered into a strategic partnership with U.S.-based peer Eli Lilly and Company (Eli Lilly).
The two companies are collaborating through a licence and supply agreement, pursuant to which Novast has granted an exclusive licence to Eli Lilly to commercialise certain pharmaceutical products in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Novast is headquartered in Nantong in China’s Jiangsu province. It is a generic and specialty pharmaceutical company with established high systems and manufacturing facilities for the global and domestic Chinese markets. Eli Lilly is based in Indianapolis, Indiana and is a pharmaceutical product innovator with research laboratories around the world.
In the partnership, Novast was represented by a Hong Kong-based Davis Polk & Wardwell team led by James Lin and Kirtee Kapoor.
According to a Reuters report, Eli Lilly expects its expanded collaboration with Novast to greatly enhance its efforts to build a portfolio of Eli Lilly-branded generic medicines in China. The collaboration may also ultimately result in Novast providing local and regional manufacturing capabilities for Eli Lilly's own pipeline of potential new medicines.
As part of the agreement, Eli Lilly will increase its equity position in Novast by $20 million. The former made an initial equity investment in the latter several years ago through one of its venture capital units.
Novast, meanwhile, has committed to set up a platform to support Eli Lilly-branded generic products and increase the manufacturing capacity at its Nantong site over the next several years. Eli Lilly, on its part, will be providing technical support to enhance quality standards. The additional capacity will support the collaboration, but will not be solely dedicated to Eli Lilly products.
The two companies have selected an initial list of medicines across multiple therapeutic areas that will be manufactured by Novast once the facilities are operational. Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed. ALB
Candice Mak is the North Asia Editor at ALB. Follow her on Twitter: @ALB_Magazine.
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