Eris Lifesciences Ltd on Wednesday said it will acquire private equity firm Samara Capital-backed pharma platform Oaknet Healthcare Pvt Ltd for a cash consideration of Rs 650 crore ($85 million).
The acquisition will facilitate Eris Lifesciences' entry into the dermatology segment, said Eris Lifesciences in a stock market disclosure.
Apart from dermatology, Oaknet is engaged in other businesses such as gynecology, pain management, nutritional, cardiology and diabetes.
Oaknet's turnover fell to Rs 185.75 crore in fiscal 2020-21 from Rs 191.52 crore in the previous financial year, the disclosure showed.
The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
In a separate disclosure, Eris also said that it will raise Rs 350 crore in debt from Bajaj Finance.
Eris has been active on the acquisition front before and after its listing on the stock exchanges in June 2017.
Post its listing, Eris acquired nutraceuticals maker UTH Healthcare Ltd, Strides Shasun Ltd's branded generics business in India and the trademark for anti-diabetic drug Zomelis.
Samara Capital had been looking to sell Oaknet and the 100% acquisition by Eris Lifesciences will give the private equity firm an exit.
Last year VCCircle reported that pharma platform had received interest from the country’s top drug maker and a homegrown private equity firm, among other suitors.
Oaknet was founded by former Lupin executive RS Raghav in 2015. Samara had used Oaknet as a platform to acquire the India business of Johannesburg-listed drugmaker Adcock Ingram Holdings Ltd for Rs 151 crore in April 2016.
Subsequently, the entire Adcock portfolio was brought under the Oaknet brand.
Adcock India was established in June 2011 to explore opportunities in the domestic formulations market. It had acquired certain brands and assets of Cosme Farma in January 2013 and had been operating a domestic formulations business in India since then.
Since the acquisition of Adcock via Oaknet, Samara has been using it to buy brands from other pharmaceutical firms.
In 2017, Samara acquired several brands in the women’s health segment from global pharmaceutical firm Novartis AG for an undisclosed amount. The products were marketed by Oaknet. The following year, Oaknet bought the cardiology-focussed brands of the Indian unit of GlaxoSmithKline.
