Sandoz plans five more "biosimilars" launches

Having cleared the way for the approval of a biotechnology product under the European Commission's biosimilar pathway for omnitrope, a generic version of Pfizer's Genotropin (Marketletters passim), Swiss generics giant Sandoz (a division of Novartis) plans to launch up to five new "biosimilar" drugs, said its chief executive, Andreas Rummelt in an interview with the UK's Financial Times. He said Sandoz has five potential biosimilar products in its pipeline but declined to say which they were. Mr Rummelt also told the FT that he believes that biotechnology-based drugs with a combined sales value of $11.0 billion a year have lost patent protection but remain unchallenged by biosimilars.