IQuest Enterprises buys Viatris’ API biz

Hyderabad: IQuest Enterprises has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) operations of global pharmaceutical major Viatris in India. This acquisition will also mark the return of serial entrepreneur Nimmagadda Prasad to the pharma industry after a 17-year hiatus.

IQuest, the investment arm of Prasad’s family, emerged as the preferred investor following a global competitive bid. The said operations include a total of six large scale API manufacturing facilities, including three in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It has one unit each in Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad, and an R&D facility in Hyderabad as its third-party API sales.

A significant part of the team at IQuest Enterprises was involved with some of the present facilities when it was operating as part of Matrix Labs which was divested in 2006 to Mylan. Subsequently in 2020 Mylan was merged with another entity to be renamed as Viatris. Its API units posted $700-million (about Rs 5,824 crore) revenues last fiscal year.

While Prasad is the chief advisor and patron at IQuest Enterprises, his daughter Gunapati Swathi Reddy is acting as Executive Director of the company. She said, “We are excited about our largest investment in the pharmaceutical sector till date.

Our investment comes at an opportune time when India is drawing significant attention amongst the global pharma industry.