Generic Drug Maker Starting Branding Bid
By VITA REED
All of a sudden Irvine generic drug maker Sicor Inc. is interested in branding.
Earlier this month, Sicor renamed its largest unit, Gensia Sicor Pharmaceuticals, as Sicor Pharmaceuticals Inc. as part of a branding push.
“We’re not as recognized as we ought to be,” said Art LeBlanc, Sicor Pharmaceuticals’ president and Sicor Inc.’s top OC official. “We plan on changing that by making the marketplace far more aware of our track record.”
Sicor Chief Executive Marvin Samson works out of New Jersey.
The company’s products include cancer and anesthesiology drugs, as well as compounds used by other drug makers.
“We do have a couple of projects under development that will move us into a more proprietary product line,” Sicor spokeswoman Laurie Little said. “We still are a generics company. But as we expanded into some other areas, we took a look around and said we wanted to be known as Sicor.”
New Food and Drug Administration rules requiring bar codes on drug labels figured into the name change, Little said.
“All of our labels were going to undergo a change anyway, so it seemed like a good idea to go ahead and piggyback on a name change and a logo change for this division here,” she said.
Sicor also wants to more clearly align all of its worldwide facilities, Little said. The company’s Mexico plant, which now goes by Lemery, will fall under the Sicor banner, she said. The Mexico plant is looking to launch new products in Europe.
Sicor also is planning to introduce several new specialty injectable drugs and biopharmaceuticals, Little said.
The company plans to launch an ad campaign called “commitment and promise” that is intended to reinforce messages of product information, safety and affordability. Those same themes are touted by Sicor’s sales force. Sicor is working with Medicast, a New Jersey-based agency, on the campaign.
Sicor worked with the San Diego office of the Brand Institute, a New York-based company that has helped businesses such as Fruit of the Loom develop branding campaigns.
Sicor’s move toward branding began in January, when the company reacquired the rights to sell a number of cancer drugs that were being marketed by Abbott Laboratories Inc.
Sicor, through a combination of acquisitions and internal growth, is positioning itself to be a player in generic biotechnology drugs later this decade. The company started as a San Diego biotech darling in the early 1990s but switched gears to generics by the end of the decade. In 1997 the company moved its base to Irvine, where it already had a generic drug plant.
