GlaxoSmithKline takes Dr Reddys to court in US
New Delhi--GlaxoSmithKline Plc has taken Dr Dr Reddys Laboratories Ltd (NYSE: RDY) to court in the US alleging infringement of three patents on Zofran, Glaxos anti-nausea medication.

In June this year, Dr Reddys had filed an abbreviated new drug application with the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for ondansetron, the generic version of Zofran. The application was meant for tablets of 4 mg, 8 mg and 24 mg with para IV certification on all Orange Book patents for the product.

The suit says that Dr Reddys application has infringed three patents issued to it in 1987, 1988 and 1996 and has asked the court to block the approval for Dr Reddys before the patents expire.

Reacting to the lawsuit, Dr Reddys said that it believed that it had the first-to-file status for all the three strengths of ondansteron and, if successful in the litigation, would enjoy a 180-day marketing exclusivity on the product.

A spokeman for Dr Reddys says that a para IV filing is made for a product, which does not infringe on the innovators patent or when the innovators patents are not valid for various reasons.
Zofran recorded worldwide sales of $228 million during first six months of this year.
Recently, Dr Reddys, as a result of its successful challenge to Eli Lillys patents on Prozac, was able to launch fluoxetine 40 mg capsules and, in the process, became the first Indian company to get 180-day marketing exclusivity for a generic product in the US market.
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ICICI sees big money from govt business
Mumbai-- ICICI Ltd has formed a Government Initiatives Group (GIG) dedicated to interacting with central and state governments and their undertakings and expects to generate business of a hefty Rs 8000-10,000 crore this fiscal alone from this segment.

ICICI managing director and CEO KV Kamath said the organisation has constituted a team headed by a general manager, located at New Delhi, and 40 executives spread across the country to handle governmental business. In many cases, state governments and agencies are even willing to escrow the sales tax and local collections to ICICI as part of the deal with the institution.

Already, 25-30 per cent of ICICIs incremental approvals comes from this segment, Mr Kamath said adding that earlier, ICICI had formed relationship teams for its major clients, but when it saw major business opportunities emanating from the government sector now, it decided to set up GIG to exclusively cater to this segment. GIG interacts with a host of clients, including central government departments, central and state level institutions, public sector companies, state governments, municipalities, quasi-government bodies and government undertakings.

ICICI wants to take modern, technology-led finance to the government arms and is talking to various government arms to offer services that would make their sales tax collections more efficient, and improve the collection of the power sector dues in some cases. While the transactions side of services is one part, ICICI is also in the process of entering into deals where it lends to various municipalities and PSUs as part of this initiative.
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Toyota to roll out Camry in D-segment next year
MumbaiJapanese auto giant Toyota is planning to launch luxury car, Camry, in India by the middle of 2002.
Camry will debut in the premiere D-segment and would be brought in as a completely built unit (CBU) from Japan.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Ltd director (marketing division) Satoshi Aoki said the company would be bringing in the latest version of the Camry soon to be launched in Japan.

The luxury car will carry a fancy price tag in the range of Rs 14-16 lakh.

The pricing could see a downward revision if the current high import duties on CBUs came down in the next union budget he added.

The company, which has met with success with its Qualis model in India (with a 40 per cent market-share in the multi-purpose vehicle segment), is also studying two-three new models, which it may manufacture in India. The company is also looking at entering the passenger car segment, officials added.

Mr Aloki added that the company is expecting to break-even by the third quarter of next year.
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To step up Qualis output to meet sales target
Toyota Kirloskar Motors is planning to step up the production schedule of Qualis to avoid missing its annual sales target of 35,000 units in 2001.

The possibility comes despite Toyota being the clear market leader in India in the utility vehicles segment. It also achieved a 51 per cent increase in sales during the first seven months of the current calendar year.

The company, with sales of its multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) totalling 16,646 units during January-July of 2001 (SIAM figures), needs to sell close to 3,700 units for the remaining five months of the current year to achieve the target, which is higher than Toyota's installed capacity of 3,400 units per month.

Sandeep Singh, general manager (marketing) of Toyota Kirloskar expressed confidence in achieving the target and said that whereas the company now takes 7.5 minutes to produce a Qualis, the production time would now be slashed to 7 minutes to achieve the sales target.

The company is planning to increase its dealerships to 42 by the year-end, most of which will come up in smaller towns and cities, in addition to adding 30 more service centres.

Further, the company is planning to increase its sales in the North-East, which at present accounts for only 3 per cent of its sales.
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Colgate to tempt rural India with herbal Colgate
MumbaiColgate-Palmolive (India) has initiated the second phase of Operation Jagruti with a massive rural sampling and seeding exercise for Colgate Herbal according to Colgate-Palmolive (India) chairman S Peter Dam, at the 60th annual general meeting held in Mumbai on Wednesday.

He told shareholders that the programme is targeted at the non-users and the infrequent users of dentifrices, and in addition to increasing oral health care awareness, it will generate product trials and seed products in village outlets.

Operation Jagruti is a village contact campaign, designed to increase rural penetration by awakening consumers to the benefits of better oral care products and practice.
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Toronto-Dominion to increase Subex stake
New DelhiCanada-based Toronto-Dominion Bank is acquiring an additional three per cent equity stake in Subex Systems, the Bangalore-based software company. The stake acquisition will increase Toronto-Dominions stake in Subex Systems to a little over 9 per cent. The Bank will be picking up around 2.2 lakh shares in Subex Systems for a consideration of Rs 110 per share, which is a hefty premium of about 135 per cent to Subexs current share price of Rs 46-47.
Subex Systems closed at Rs 47.40 on BSE yesterday.
Currently, around 61.7 per cent in the company is held by the promoters, 17 per cent with foreign investors and FIs and the rest is with the public.
According to sources, the Toronto Dominion Bank will be picking up the stake in Subex in lieu of a unpaid loan of a Canadian company called Magardi Inc, whose IT assets were acquired by Subex in May this year.
Magardi went bankrupt early this year and couldnt pay back the loan to the bank.
Meanwhile, Subex bought the IT assets of Magardi and part-paid for them in cash. The remaining amount was paid for by offering a 3 per cent stake to Toronto-Dominion.
Subex Systems Ltd has reported an impressive 106 per cent jump in its net profit for the financial year ended March 31, 2001, to Rs 10.2 crore.
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Hindujas planning to dilute stake in IndusInd
KolkataThe Hindujas may dilute their stake in IndusInd Bank from 56 per cent to 40 per cent in line with Reserve Bank of Indias directive to private banks to bring down their majority holdings.
Managing director Bhaskar Ghose said the new equity structure did not consider any fresh capital infusion. He did not divulge the proposed holding pattern of the bank and said this would be relevant only when the central bank gave its approval.
A high capital adequacy ratio of 15 per cent does not necessitate fresh capital and servicing a higher capital base would be difficult, Ghose said.
In case, RBI wants a different equity holding than the one submitted, IndusInd bank would look at other options.
Currently, 56 per cent of the banks shares are held by two promoting companies, IndusInd Enterprises & Finance Ltd with 31.25 per cent and the Mauritius-based IndusInd International Holding Ltd, 25 per cent.
The Hindujas have 50 per cent stake in both these companies and about 30 per cent is held by the public while the rest is held between NRIs and institutions. IndusInd Bank is also adopting a whole new strategy on the operational side.

Primarily a wholesale bank until recently, the bank plans to focus on the retail segment in a big way. Even in corporate banking , it plans to shift to bigger from smaller and mid-tier corporate accounts.
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Davox to move helpdesk to India
New DelhiDavox, the supplier of technology to more than 60 per cent of call centres in India, is shifting its helpdesk to India for its Asia Pacific customers. It is believed to be scouting for partners in India to offer solutions on its technologies.
The company is believed to be in advanced stages of negotiations with HCL Technologies, Delhi-based Network Solutions and Wipro.
The Indian market is growing at a very fast pace and we are expecting 30 percent of our Asia Pacific revenues from India this year, which in turn are a quarter of the worldwide market, says Pramod Ratwani, vice-president (Asia Pacific), Davox.
Besides more and more companies moving their call centres to India, the third party call centres are also ramping up their capacity. Three of our largest customers have doubled their base quite recently, he adds.
The customer interaction management solutions company is also setting up a fully owned subsidiary in India by the end of September.
According to Frost & Sullivan, Davox has close to 40 percent market share in the pan Asian call centre outbound systems. Next in the marketshare battle was Lucent with 23.8 percent, E-share commanded 15.6 per cent.

Davox is a provider of customer interaction management solutions that embrace telephony, email and the web. These convergent services are used in financial institutions, airlines, telecom providers, insurance companies, utilities, retailers, and other businessess.
Headquartered in Massachesetts, Davox has offices across the US as well as subsidiaries in Canada, UK, Mexico, Germany, Brazil, Japan and Singapore.
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Dabhol Power: Indian lenders to negotiate tariff at Rs 2.60/unit
New DelhiThe government says, Indian lenders to the Enron-promoted Dabhol Power Company will negotiate a tariff of Rs 2.60 per unit as part of a revival strategy being drawn up by a committee headed by IDBI executive director AK Doda.

Senior officials said the government has asked the Indian lenders to the $3 billion power project to first arrive at the cost of power and then work backwards.

The lenders are slated to meet officials from the Central Electricity Authority and ministries of finance and power on Friday to take the process of working out a revival blueprint forward.

Sources said that DPC is agreeable to reduce power tariff to Rs 3.20 per unit while the lenders had earlier proposed that after the completion of the second phase, the cost of power be brought down further to Rs 3 per unit.

But even at this tariff level, substantial power offtake may not be possible and there is a need to reduce it further, officials said.
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Trent expands operations
New Delhi--Trent Ltd, which owns the Westside brand of retail stores, has decided to invest Rs 40 crore to launch 100 food and grocery stores in northern and western India during the next financial year.

The company also plans to introduce specialty stores (exclusive men or women stores) within the next few years once the company has about 20 Westside stores under its umbrella.

The outlets would be launched under a separate brand name, which would be finalised by the year-end.

A senior company official said on an average, each new Westside store would require an additional investment of about Rs 2-3 crore.

Tata Sons has 25 per cent stake in Trent Ltd and the rest is with the public.

The company has already invested Rs 53 crore in its operations and clocked a retailing turnover of Rs 43 crore last year.

Tata expects to clock a turnover of Rs 50 crore this year. The company spends an average of 8-10 per cent of the turnover on advertising and promotions.
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ABB sets up wholly owned subsidiary
New DelhiThe Rs $22 bn Infrastructure multinational ABB has floated a 100 per cent subsidiary called ABB Industrial IT Development Centre, to take care of software development and services for high-technology products of ABB group companies worldwide.
The express purpose of the subsidiary of this power major is to provide high quality, cost-efficient technology services. The company will be headquartered in Mumbai and will have its development centre in Bangalore.
An ABB spokesperson said the development centre is likely to go on stream by the end of this year and the centre will initially concentrate on only providing software development for ABBs high-tech products.
However, sources said that since ABB is going ahead with the investment for creating a fullfledged software development centre, the company has also kept its options open to develop software for even third party clients in India as well as overseas.
The parent company of ABB Industrial IT Development Centre will be ABB Holdings (South Asia). ABB Holdings (South Asia) is a 100-per cent arm of ABB Asea Brown Boveri, Zurich.
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International journal major spreads net to India
New DelhiVery soon the Massachusetts-based, Nasdaq listed and one of the largest journal distributing companies in the world, RoweCom, will spread its net operations to India through an alliance with online bookstore firstandsecond.Com.
The $350 million-company also plans to have a physical presence in India over the next six months through a joint venture.
RoweCom will offer over 200,000 titles published across the globe in India, both through the net and offline and would enable Indian companies and professionals to order, subscribe and pay in rupees for the latest technical, business and scientific journals from their desktops, according to GBS Bindra, president and CEO, firstandsecond.Com.
According to those in publishing industry, the Rs 1,000 crore-market for scientific and technical journals in the country is largely dominated by institutional buyers such as major research and academic institutes and professional bodies.
These institutes generally directly approach individual publishers or their agents to place orders and in many cases make payments in foreign currency.
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