Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo to exit Sun Pharma

Japanese drug maker Daiichi Sankyo on Monday announced that it would exit from Indian giant Sun Pharmaceuticals by selling its 8.9% stake in the latter, in block trades at the stock market.

Japanese drug maker Daiichi Sankyo on Monday announced that it would exit from Indian giant Sun Pharmaceuticals by selling its 8.9% stake in the latter, in block trades at the stock market.

Sources said the stake sale would be worth about Rs 18,000 crore (about $3 billion).

“From the perspective of the improvement of corporate value, Daiichi Sankyo has performed a review of the Sun Pharma shares and reached a conclusion to sell the stocks. After the sale, Daiichi Sankyo will not be a major shareholder of Sun Pharma,” Daiichi Sankyo said in a press statement.

In April 2014, when Sun Pharma agreed to buy Ranbaxy from Daiichi Sankyo for $3.2 billion, the Japanese company got an 8.9% stake in the new Sun Pharma as part of the deal. It is this 8.9% stake that Daiichi plans to sell.

Daiichi had bought erstwhile Indian pharmaceutical poster boy Ranbaxy Laboratories in 2008 for an eye-popping $4.6 billion (about Rs 20,000 crore then) from its former promoters Malvinder Mohan Singh and family. With the buy, it targeted capturing the global demand for generic drugs.

However, Ranbaxy spiraled down from being the poster boy to an industry problem child while struggling against complaints from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Now, sources said, Daiichi would sell its stakes for about Rs 18,000 crore.

At the time of the Ranbaxy sale to Sun Pharma in April 2014, the value of the Japanese firm’s investments in the country had halved since it bought control in Ranbaxy in 2008. This was because the regulatory problems had triggered a sharp fall in Ranbaxy’s share price.

Neither Daiichi nor Sun Pharma responded to HT’s email questionnaire.