beyondbrics

Global healthcare companies show no sign of losing interest in India. On Monday Reckitt Benckiser, the UK cleaning products group, announced it had acquired India’s Paras Pharmaceuticals for Rs32.6bn ($724m), in a move that will significantly increase RB’s emerging markets presence.

In buying the maker of a range of brands, including a painkilling ointment called Moov, RB is not the first global group to diversify away from the slow-growing regions in the US and Europe into one of the world’s fastest-growing pharmaceutical and healthcare products markets. And it is unlikely to be the last.
“The acquisition of Paras is another step forward in RB’s growth strategy in consumer healthcare,” said Bart Becht, chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser, reports James Fontanella-Khan from Mumbai. “It creates a material healthcare business in India, one of the most promising healthcare markets in the world with the addition of number of strong and leading brands.”
Reckitt Benckiser has bought the Indian group from Actis, the emerging markets focused private equity company, which owns 63 per cent stake of the company and from minority owners Sequoia Capital and Girish Patel, the founder of Paras.
Paras, which expects to generate Rs4bn in sales this fiscal year, produces several over-the-counter pain relief products that will help strengthen RB’s existing healthcare products portfolio, said analysts in Mumbai.
Fontanella-Khan writes that the deal follows a series of acquisitions and partnerships between Indian and foreign companies this year, including Abbott Laboratories’ acquisition of Piramal Healthcarefor $3.7bn in May 2010. Other groups that have been sealed a partnerships include GlaxoSmithKline with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, and Pfizer with Aurobindo and Claris Lifesciences.