Moksha8’s sales of US$ 140 million here in 9 months with Roche; operations to expand; up to 20% per Mexican partner

Last year, not even the pharmaceutical industry avoided the impact of the country’s economic crisis.

That industry showed another fiscal year with declining sales, seen in units, in spite of the dynamism of the interchangeable generics.

But beyond all this, the US company Moksha8, headed by Simba Gill, opened in the country in April of 2009 and managed to close with sales of 140 million US dollars.

This company is a marketer of pharmaceuticals which, in the middle of this recession, bet on the country’s potential in this sector. It began by reinforcing an alliance it achieved with Roche – run by Miguel Múnera – in medications such as Lexotan, Rivotril, Mesulid, Rocephin and Bactrim for the nervous system, infections and pain treatment.

Its strength lies in taking up products which are not first generation but still have major opportunities on the market, provided they are propelled by a decisive marketing strategy.

Moksha8 also added to its portfolio the benefits of another association with BioCryst, Peramivir, a medication for serious cases of the H1N1 flu whose use was authorized via the National Institute of Respiratory Illnesses by Miguel Ángel Toscano’s Cofepris in December.

Recently, Rodrigo Herrera’s Genomma Lab also joined the market as a pharmaceutical distributor of generics, but this company’s strength lies in TV advertising. The rigid structure of the Mexican pharmaceutical market provides the type of opportunities of which Moksha8 hopes to take advantage.

Fifty percent of this company is funded by the Texas Pacific Group (TPG), which has been operating since 1992 and has revenues of 67 billion dollars derived from its involvement with some 40 companies in the US, Europe and Asia.

It is, for example, a partner of Burger King, MGM, Neiman Marcus, Ducati, Bally, Debenhams, and the Australian airline Qantas, to mention some of its investments of around 40 billion dollars. Moksha8, a private company that could go public in 2 or 3 years, is also 10 percent funded by the Brazilian Votorantim, as well as by California Montreux Equity and 9 percent funded by Simba Gill.

The marketer, established in 2007, is also in Brazil, where in addition to Roche it has an agreement with Pfizer which is run here by Jorge Bracero. Together, the two countries represent sales of 220 million dollars and a staff of 250 people.

Although in general Latin America shows one of the highest potentials in the world in medications with weighted annual growth of between 11 and 14 percent from now to 2013, Mexico in particular has captured the interest of Moksha8.

As Moksha 8 develops in the future, more medications – for example, for cancer or the immunological system – will be incorporated as a result of other alliances or even the development of its own lines.

The company, which here is headed by Ayse Kocak, an executive of Turkish ancestry who possesses more than 15 years experience in the sector, is also in search of a Mexican partner.

Right now the company is in discussions with various entrepreneurs with the goal of incorporating one of them and strengthening its activities in Mexico.

The local partner could acquire up to 20 percent of the overall capital of the pharmaceutical company, which also operates in London and Hong Kong. For TPG itself, its involvement with Moksha8 could act as a kind of foothold to expand its presence here with another of the companies it owns.

NAMES, NAMES AND… NAMES by ALBERTO AGUILAR aguilaralberto@prodigy.net.mx