Dong-A buys Bayer’s birth control drugs

Dong-A Pharmaceuticals has acquired the local rights to manufacture, market and sell four of Bayer’s over-the-counter contraceptive drugs, the company said on Wednesday.

Dong-A Pharm owns the rights to Bayer’s Myvlar, Meliane, Minivlar and Triquilar in Korea, where the contraceptive drug market is estimated to be worth around 2.2 billion won ($2 million) as of 2013, according to IMS, a pharmaceutical research firm.

Korea’s contraceptive drug market has expanded an average of 6 percent annually in the past five years.

Dong-A Pharm declined to elaborate on actual value of the deal.

“We expect greater synergy with our existing portfolio of feminine pharmaceutical products,” said a Dong-A spokesman.

The four contraceptive drugs can be bought without a doctor’s prescription, and Myvlar is the second-highest selling birth control pill in Korea after Merck’s Mercilon.

Myvlar, which was released by Bayer in 1988, is sold in 100 countries.

This is the first time the domestic pharmaceutical firm has acquired full local rights over drugs that had originally been manufactured and sold by a multinational firm.

Bayer Korea said the decision to sell the four drugs was the result of strategic changes to its pharmaceutical portfolio.

“We decided to let go of the over-the-counter contraceptives while keeping others, like Yaz,” said a Bayer Korea spokeswoman.

BY PARK JUNG-YOUN [park.jungyoun@joongang.co.kr]