Venus Remedies Ltd a research based pharma Company earned laurels to the country by grant of its 5th Product Patent in current year. CIPRO (Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office) has granted 3rd product patent in South Africa after Sulbactomax and Tobracef. This is also the 3rd patent of POTENTOX within 5 months of its first grant in South Korea.
Potentox is a unique super specialty product with combiration of a Cephalosporin with Arninoglycoside indicated for the treatment of Hospital acquired pneumonia and Community acquired pneumonia and Febrile Neutropenia. WHO data suggest that there are 4.50 million cases of pneumonia each year and that it causes 3.9 million deaths. In the sub-Saharan region of Africa, 1022000 die.
Statistics South Africa (2007) indicates that in 2005, "Influenza and Pneumonia" was the third leading cause of death overall, accounting for 7.71% of deaths. In an endeavor to overcome deadly diseases world wide Venus Remedies Ltd accepted the challenge to develop safer, economical (compared to vaccines), more effective therapies.
Lower respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia, are a leading cause of death and years of life lost (YLL) in South Africa. It is fifth leading cause of death in females and seventh major cause of mortality in males. In Sub-Saharan Africa among HIV-infected patients presenting with a lower respiratory tract infection have confirmed that community- acquired pneumonia is the second cause of death with incidence of pneumonia due to Spneumonae rising to 34.5%. Venus Medicine Research center developed Potentox after an extensive research on current treatment trends for pneumonia, causes of their failures, reasons for drug resistance in order to bring out an innovative solution which can not only reduce the treatment time for pneumonia from 21-30 days to 7-10 days but also reduced drug and disease induced toxicities. This makes Potentox ideal for the treatment of HAP and CAP as number of adverse drug reactions are drastically reduced making the drug safe even for paediatric use.
In South Africa currently 8% of gross domestic product (GDP) is spent on health and more than half of this amount is channeled into medical insurance schemes that serve the contributors and their dependents who constitute less than 20% of the population. This indicates that there is huge gap in demand and supply keeping in view the mortality in African continent. Venus expects to fetch good share in its kitty by out licensing and selling potentox in African continent.
The product was launched in Indian market 2 years back after completion of all preclinical and multicentric Phase III clinical trials on more than 300 patients after DCGI approval. Later after the launch Post Marketing Phase IV studies were also conducted to re-establish the safety of drug. Company is in the process of out licensing and further registration of POTENTOX in South African market.
The stock closed the day at Rs.221.60, up by Rs.5.20 or 2.40%. The stock hit an intraday high of Rs.234.70 and low of Rs.212.10.
The total traded quantity was 15964 compared to 2 week average of 7580.
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