[SEOUL=Health/medical News] Handok Pharmaceuticals, already in controversy over fairness at the point of being appointed as innovative pharmaceutical company, has at last again decided to be a wholesale dealer for a multinational pharmaceutical company.
Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries has entered into a joint venture with Handok Pharmaceuticals.
Teva will hold 51 percent and Handok will own the rest, in a venture which will be Teva's first in east Asia outside Japan and which is due to start operations in the next few months. Financial details were not disclosed.
Under terms of the deal, Teva will be responsible for manufacturing and supplying medicines, while Handok will handle sales and marketing, distribution and regulatory affairs.
Handok's move is interpreted as another effort to be a wholesale dealer again for foreign capital. Concerns grow both from inside and outside as th company vowed to be opening a new era of independent business when terminating forty-nine-year-long honeymoon relationship with Sanofi. The vow has turned out to be just a vain declaration.
At Handok's temporary shareholders meeting 14 Dec, shareholders pointed out the pathetic situation where the company had to sell other drug makers' product without investing meoney into research and development.
A shareholder said, "handok has been only selling Sanofi's products while Handok should have developed its own products. Although the company is running a research lab, it actually did not develop any new product own its own. I urge the company to focus on research and development from now on."
An official from pharmaceutical industry said, "The purpose for the introduction of innovative pharmaceutical companies is to stimulate and encourage the drug makers capable of developing new drugs. The government should appoint the companies truly willing to develop new drugs."
The comment can be translated into a criticism toward Handok's move heavily gravitated to being wholesale dealer's function.
Some industry observers put out an analysis that Handok Pharmaceuticals has changed its company name into simply 'Handok' without 'pharmaceuticals'in an effort to expand its business to various business spheres.
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