Singapore: Days after the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) approved Cadila Healthcare's new chemical entity, Lipaglyn, for launch in India, the company announced its plans for the year 2020. Cadila Healthcare said in a press statement late last week that Lipaglyn is used for treating a type of diabetes called diabetic dyslipidemeia and the Indian drug controller has given nod to the drug.

Chairman and MD of Zydus Cadilla, Mr Pankaj R Patel, said that, "Lipaglyn provides patients suffering from diabetic dyslipidemia the option for once-daily oral therapy that has a beneficial effect on both lipid parameters as well as glycemic control."

The company said that it had spent $250 million in developing Lipaglyn that took nearly 12 years to fructify. Cadila will now be spending about $150-200 million to launch the drug in overseas markets in the course of the next 3-5 years. "It has always been our dream to take a molecule right from concept stage to its launch. Today we have realised this dream," Mr Patel added.

Diabetic dyslipidemeia is a condition where a person is diabetic and has elevated levels of total cholesterol. The company expects the drug to clock over $1 billion sales a year, when it will be sold globally and the firm expects to launch the drug in the third quarter of this fiscal.

The company further added that it expects atleast two molecules out of the 20 currently under discovery research programmes to become successful by 2020. The company is currently working in the areas of metabolic disorders, oncology and inflammatory disorders and said that it currently spends over seven percent of its turnover on research programmes.