London, February 25:

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, one of India’s largest manufacturers of generic medicines, is the latest Indian company working on putting in a bid for a major European company - the generics arm of German pharmaceuticals giant Merck.

“We will take a look at it and then decide,” G V Prasad, Dr Reddy’s vice-chairman and chief

executive officer, told The Times here. He added that any bid from Dr Reddy’s would be as part of a consortium, most likely backed by private equity.

“We don’t have the size to do it on our own,” Prasad, who was on a visit to London, told the newspaper.

Merck is reported to have said in January that it was considering a sale of its generic drugs business to help pay for its Euro 10.5 billion acquisition in September of Serono, the Swiss biotechnology group.

A sale of the Merck Generics unit, which is believed to be worth between Euro 3 billion and Euro 4 billion, would allow Merck to concentrate on its core prescription pharmaceuticals business.

The Times said that Merck Generics had sales in over 90 countries and was the third-largest generics business in the world. In 2005 it reported sales of Euro 1.8 billion and operating profits of Euro 238 million. It employed approximately 5,000 people.

Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy’s already owns a small European generics business. “We see the potential to grow that quite significantly,” Prasad told the newspaper. He added that Dr Reddy’s was aiming to achieve revenue growth of 20-25 percent in Europe from 2008 onwards.

Globally, the company had sales of $546 million in 2006 and is India’s second-largest pharmaceutical company after Delhi-based Ranbaxy Laboratories.