Douglas Pharmaceuticals sells Australian subsidiary

Auckland-based generic drugs manufacturer Douglas Pharmaceuticals is to plough funds from the $83 million sale of its Australian subsidiary back into the business.

Douglas Pharmaceuticals has sold the subsidiary, which accounted for around 30 per cent of the company's income, to Melbourne company Genepharm Australasia.

Under the deal Genepharm acquires exclusive Australian rights to Douglas's portfolio, including drugs it manufactures and those it licenses from other companies.

Douglas Pharmaceuticals owner Graeme Douglas told The Dominion Post that his board and senior executives had to figure out where the company went from here.

Some of the $83.6 million from the sale would go into developing new drugs, he said.

The future of the company, which had $140 million in sales last year, lay in the development and formulation of generic molecules.

It recently started work extending product development laboratories at its west Auckland plant.

- NZPA