Inside Cipla's battle with ‘superbugs' as antibiotic resistance rises in India

Mint

5 hours ago

Mumbai-headquartered drugmaker Cipla Ltd is bolstering its focus on a pipeline of drugs to fight infections caused by bacterial antimicrobial resistance in India, a growing health crisis.
The company, a leader in the infectious diseases segment, has already launched two antibiotics targetting such superbugs, and sees the segment as a long-term focus area, a senior executive told Mint.
'Since we began our work on (antimicrobial drug resistance), our strategic plan has been to introduce three to four products in the AMR space over a 5-year horizon," Dr. Jaideep Gogtay, Cipla's global chief medical officer, said in an interview.
'I think it will be a long-term strategy. As a company which remains focused on India, there is no option for us to not be in the antibiotics segment," Gogtay added.
Antimicrobial drug resistance occurs when microorganisms like bacteria or fungi evolve to resist the drugs designed to kill or inhibit them. These 'superbugs' render existing treatments ineffective and can lead to escalation of the infection, and cause death as well.
Bacterial antimicrobial resistance was associated with 4.71 million global deaths in 2021, according to a Lancet study. This could increase to 39 million by 2050. India, which is one of the world's largest antibiotic markets, also has one of the highest burdens of drug resistance.
Overuse of antibiotics is leading to increasing resistance in the community, while new drug development has not kept pace with the growing threat.
'Out of every 100 new drugs developed, only one or two are antibiotics. Although we know, in the future antibiotic-resistant infections are going to probably kill more people than cancer infections," Gogtay said.
Globally, the development focus has shifted away from infectives and antibiotics to therapies like cancer and obesity, with most large pharma companies exiting antibiotic research.
Cipla's pipeline
Cipla has launched two drugs targeted at bacterial AMR in the past year. In May, it became the first company to launch plazomicin, marketed under brand name Zemdri, in India, a novel anti-microbial with demonstrated activity against multi-drug resistant bacteria and clinical efficacy in complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI).
Clinical efficacy refers to how well a drug or treatment method achieves its intended effect under controlled clinical trials.
Last year, Cipla partnered with Chennai-based Orchid Pharma Ltd to launch its novel antibiotic Cefepime-Enmetazobactam, which has been approved for the treatment of cUTIs, hospital-acquired pneumonia, and ventilator-associated pneumonia.
The company plans to launch this year a non-antibiotic that can be used to prevent cUTIs without the risk of developing resistance. 'We are working with a partner, and the product has been approved in India. We will launch this product in India shortly," said Gogtay.
For 2024-25, Cipla reported a revenue of ₹27,548 crore, up 8% year-on-year, while profit after tax surged 28% to ₹5,273 crore.
How big is the market?
The overall market for anti-infective drugs in India was ₹26,824 crore in May in terms of moving annual total (MAT) sales, according to pharma intelligence platform Pharmarack. Of this, antibiotics accounted for sales worth ₹23,127 crore. (MAT sales refers to total sales over the past 12 months, calculated on a rolling basis.)
However, it is hard to zero in on the size of the market for drugs specifically targeted at drug-resistant bacteria, according to experts. Drugs that target antimicrobial drug resistance are given after the first or second line of antibiotics prove to be ineffective in treating a patient. However, as resistance increases, the market is growing.
'Here, what they (Cipla) seem to be trying to do is identify certain areas which may be meaningful over a period of time and try to get in early. They are trying to be early in an area that may become a lot more relevant in the future," said Prashant Nair, analyst for healthcare and pharma at Ambit Capital.
Anti-infective medicines make for a key therapy segment for Cipla, after respiratory, cardiac and urology, said Nair. 'Most players who are strong in anti-infectives therapy may be looking at this space."
Apart from Cipla, Wockhardt Ltd too has been sharpening its focus on antimicrobial drug resistance, with a pipeline of six novel antibiotics, of which two have been launched in India.
As on 3 July, Cipla shares were down by about 1.4% each since the beginning of the year, while Wockhardt shares were up nearly 20% on NSE. The Nifty Pharma index was down more than 5% year-to-date.