The deal is expected to bring in revenue of US$ 613 million. The transaction is expected to close in the coming month subject to customary closing conditions. Sanofi is ranked among the top five pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Crohn"s disease is an inflammatory disease of the intestines.

According to the agreement Glenmark will receive an upfront payment of US$ 50 million, of which US$ 25 million will be paid upon closing of the transaction and US$ 25 million, which is contingent upon Sanofi"s positive assessment of certain data to be provided by Glenmark.

Saldanha said this was the sixth outlicensing deal that Glenmark had been involved in. If we include the $50-million upfront payment from the Sanofi deal, the company will have received $200 million in outlicensing revenues over the past eight to 10 years, which is the highest by any pharmaceutical company.

It will continue to get milestone payments as the drug undergoes development. The earliest possible date for launch of the drug is 2017. The bulk of the $613-million payments are expected to come in by then.

Glenmark could receive success based development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments as well. The total of these payments is expected to reach US$613 million. Also the company, Glenmark, will recieve royalties on sales of product commercialized under the license.

Sanofi will have exclusive marketing rights for North America, Europe, Japan, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Meawhile the companies, Sanofi and Glenmark, will co-market in Russia, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. And Glenmark will retain exclusive marketing rights in India and other countries around the rest of the world.

Elias Zerhouni, M.D., President, Global Research & Development, Sanofi, said: “There continues to be a strong medical need for safer and more efficacious products for the treatment of Inflammatory Diseases."

He further added, “GBR500 brings an innovative approach to Sanofi"s Immuno Inflammation portfolio, which we believe may address a significant gap in treating Inflammatory Diseases which would be of huge benefit to patients."

Dr. Michael Buschle, President Biologics for Glenmark commented, “The focus for the Switzerland biologics R&D centre has been to discover and develop exciting novel monoclonal antibodies for the potential treatment of inflammatory and oncology conditions."

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