Singapore: With an eye on advanced markets like US and Europe, India's Cadila Healthcare has said that it would soon start filings for approval of its innovator drug Lipaglyn there. As per news reports, the drug is said to have current patients base of 50,000 in India within the first year of its launch.

Speaking to news media, Mr Ganesh Nayak, chief operating officer and executive director, Cadila Healthcare explained, "We launched Lipaglyn in the country on September 16 last year and we have till date 50,000 satisfied patients using the product. We have around 3,000 diabetologists, cardiologists and physicians. For us, this forms a good database. Now, we can take this product to the world."

Mr Nayak added that the three biggest markets globally are the US, Europe and Japan. "We will simultaneously start filing in these markets and the regulatory process will start within the next few months. Within the next three-to-five years we would bring in our lipaglyn at the global level in terms of sales and marketing. Japan will take a little more time since there are some technical requirements in that market. Also to market in these places, we might look at different modules of selling this product there."

Lipaglyn, to be used to treat diabetic dyslipidemia and hypertriglyceridemia in Type II diabetes, is the first new chemical entity (NCE) discovered and developed indigenously by an Indian pharma company. This drug has a unique dual action of working on both glycemic control and the lipid controls.