Athenex Pharmaceutical Division and Gland Pharma, one of the major injectable pharmaceutical companies in India, have announced a partnership agreement to launch and market injectable products in the United States. Many of these products are therapeutically relevant to the Athenex proprietary pipeline of products under development. In addition, the partnered products are either already approved by the US FDA or expected to be approved in the near term. The initial partnership is for more than 20 products. Under the partnership, Gland has developed and will supply injectable products that Athenex will market in the United States.
The Athenex Specialty Products Division was created in 2016 to be the commercial infrastructure that will market and distribute Athenex's products globally, including its proprietary pipeline of products. This highly skilled team, which has significant experience in marketing specialty products, will begin that marketing program in the near future and will eventually market Athenex's unique proprietary oral oncology products. Athenex will continue to build relationships with GPOs, wholesalers, distributors, physician groups, and alternate site customers, and will forge the path to future commercialization of these highly unique products.
Mr. Jeffrey Yordon, President of Athenex Specialty Products, stated "We are very excited to have this opportunity to partner with Gland Pharma, one of the leading specialty pharmaceutical companies in the world. Gland's supply capabilities, and excellent track record of execution and high quality, make them an outstanding partner for Athenex. The Gland partnership is one of many partnerships we plan on executing in the near term and will supply high value products to our markets. We are extremely pleased to be working with an organization of Gland's caliber. The emphasis on product selection with Gland and other future partners is oncology and oncology supportive care which will complement our robust proprietary pipeline of oral oncolytics. Opportunities like this enable Athenex to build a strong infrastructure creating our own sales, marketing and distribution systems prior to the launch of our first proprietary oncology product."
Srinivas Sadu, Chief Operating Officer of Gland Pharma, stated "Gland is proud to be a significant partner to Athenex. We have the complete confidence in the management team that Mr. Yordon has assembled and we fully expect them to be highly successful in the market as they have always demonstrated in the past. We look forward to Athenex's success and expect our relationship will grow in the future."
The specialty products being launched in the near term will create a solid revenue and margin base to help subsidize the ongoing clinical trials and research and development projects for the Athenex proprietary pipeline. Many of the near term products in this launch will be in the oncology market, which is synergistic with Athenex's proprietary oral oncology pipeline. To further the synergies, the company will be working closely with its Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) division, PolyMed, to back-integrate API into the Athenex pipeline of products. The company fully expects to consummate several more of these types of transactions in the near future.