(Yicai Global) July 3 -- India's Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has authorized Haisco Pharmaceutical Group to sell its Aprepitant capsules in mainland China.

The Indian generic alleviates cancer patients' chemotherapy-related vomiting, the company based in Chengdu in China's southwestern Sichuan province announced yesterday.

 Haisco will be exclusively licensed to sell the medication in mainland China, while Glenmark will produce and provide the product to Haisco under the development, license and supply agreement it penned with the Chinese drug maker's Sichuan Haisco Pharmaceutical unit, per the announcement.

Haisco will pay USD200,000 up front after the contract is inked, and another USD200,000 after China's Food and Drug Administration thumbs-ups sales of the pharmaceutical. The company must place purchase orders based on the delivery cycle and minimum order amount fixed in the agreement after the approval, per the announcement, which stated no price for the drug.

The medicine got the nod for US sales in 2017, the announcement added.

Getting Attention

Indian generic drugs are dirt cheap compared to patented drugs. A Chinese film about selling India's life-saving generic drugs to poor patients called 'Dying to Survive' rocked China's box office last year and riveted Chinese patients' gaze on their giant southwestern neighbor's well-stocked chest of cost-effective medicines.

Haisco achieved sales worth CNY3.43 billion (USD500 million) and profits of CNY333 million (USD 4.8 million) last year, information on its website shows. The company employs over 350 sales staff and nearly 5,000 management representatives in a network that spans over 7,000 hospitals across China. Formed in 2000, the firm has developed 57 medicines since then, including 20 first generic drugs (over 35 percent of the total), per its website.

Mumbai-based Glenmark was founded in 1977. Starting out as a family-run generic drug and active pharmaceutical ingredient maker, it recorded sales of some INR81 billion INR (USD1.18 billion) from 2016 to 2017 and has now become India's fourth-largest pharma concern, public information shows.

Aprepitant is a chemical compound called an antiemetic that inhibits nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy and surgery by blocking the body's natural neurokinin 1 receptor that induces them, per public sources. It belongs to a class of drugs called substance P antagonists.

Editor: Ben Armour