Lupin did consider buying Wockhardt, but no talks on now

New Delhi, August 27, 2014 – Lupin Ltd. (LPC) , India’s second-largest drugmaker by market value, studied Wockhardt Ltd. (WPL) as a potential acquisition candidate, although it hasn’t met with the company’s management and isn’t now holding talks.

“There are some synergies, and there’s a lot of duplication with Lupin,” Managing Director Nilesh Gupta said in an Aug. 22 interview in Mumbai. “ We’ve certainly looked at it. It doesn’t hurt to always do that kind of analysis.”

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (SUNP) , India’s biggest drugmaker, in April announced plans to buyRanbaxy Laboratories Ltd. (RBXY) in a $3.2 billion deal to boost its presence in emerging markets. Wockhardt currently has a market value of about 78.9 billion rupees ($1.3 billion), according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“In many ways if you look at the Sun-Ranbaxy deal, at one level Sun is obviously paying top dollar, but they’ve added $2 billion to their revenues –- it’s pretty tough to add $2 billion dollars to your revenues,” Gupta said. “From that perspective, I would personally find the Wockhardt deal interesting, but there really are no talks going on at all.”

Glaxo, the U.K.’s biggest drugmaker, is selling a collection of its mature drugs with combined annual revenue of about 1 billion pounds ($1.66 billion), including Paxil, an anti-depressant, and Malarone, for malaria.

Glaxo spokesman Simon Steel declined to comment on Lupin’s interest. Bloomberg