An American multinational and a small Italian company, born on the basis of the hospital and research activity of a Roman Irccs, 'allies' in the field of dermatology. MSD, a leading group in the sector after the recent merger with Schering-Plough, signs an agreement with IDI Farmaceutici, presented yesterday in Rome.
The agreement consists of two parts, the first relating to commercial policies and market expansion, the second to the possibility of future synergies in Research & Development: MSD will distribute all IDI products in our country, thus ensuring a widespread presence in all Italian pharmacies. MSD reserves the marketing option also in Europe and Canada, guaranteeing IDI expansion in markets not covered up to now.
The Italian company will therefore have the possibility of strengthening its medical-scientific information structure to reach territories and markets never reached up to now. At the same time, IDI, on the basis of the recognized quality of its medical-scientific information structure, will assume responsibility for the promotion of some of MSD's dermatological products. For the second part of the agreement, on the one hand, the MSD scientists, recognizing the value of the IDI research structures, are evaluating the possibility of co-developing some molecules already in an advanced stage of development in the United States, in partnership with the hospitals of the group and in collaboration with the Capitoline Irccs.
On the other hand, the project also envisages the possibility of partnerships in the area of tissue regeneration and cellular biotechnology (Cell Factory), on the front of advanced therapies which should lead to cell-based preparations for major chronic degenerative pathologies.
"We want to create value by networking companies - underlined Pierluigi Antonelli, president and CEO of MSD Italia - maximizing the strengths of individual excellences. I am proud that our company, after a careful phase of 'scouting' on a global scale, has chosen the value of Italian research. Behind this agreement, there are professionalism, enthusiasm, resources and skills. And in a particularly delicate moment for the country's economy, but also for the pharmaceutical sector, with this agreement I would like to transfer a moderate, but I hope appreciated, sign of optimism".
