28 September 2016 - - US-based Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc. has entered into an exclusive agreement with Greek pharmaceutical company Pharmathen S.A. to develop and distribute a generic product in a market category with US sales of more than USD 500m, the company said.

This new collaboration illustrates Upsher-Smith's ongoing interest in building strategic relationships to grow its generic product pipeline.

Under the terms of the agreement, Pharmathen will develop, manufacture and supply the product.

Upsher-Smith will submit the ANDA, market and distribute the product exclusively in the United States as a generic under the Upsher-Smith label. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

The company, founded in 1919, is a growing, fully integrated pharmaceutical company.

Pharmathen is a European pharmaceutical company focused on the development, manufacturing and out-licensing of complex drug delivery platforms, such as Long Acting Injectable technologies, Sustained Release formulations and Preservative Free Ophthalmics.

It is one of the very few independent, vertically integrated specialty drug developers in Europe and has a long and successful development and commercialisation track record.

Pharmathen has developed more than 110 dossiers to date and has filed more than 90 patents successfully, leading to over 6,500 market authorisations.

Its own developed products are out-licensed to 200 global blue-chip customers and sold in over 80 countries by the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Pharmathen's business is entirely vertically integrated, with 1,000 employees working across three state of the art research laboratories and two manufacturing units.