Wockhardt launches Ondansetron injection in US

New Delhi, Dec 27: Wockhardt Ltd today said its US-based subsidiary Wockhardt's USA Inc launched Ondansetron injection in the country on the first working day after the patent for the product expired on December 24.

Ondansetron is the generic version of Glaxo SmithKline's Zofran injection and is used in controlling nausea and vomiting following cancer chemotherapy.

''This is Wockhardt's eighth product approval from United States Food and Drug Authority (USFDA) in 2006 and the third injection product in the US market,'' Wockhardt Chairman Habil Khorakiwala said.

The company markets 15 products in the US, 10 of them launched during 2006, he added.

Ondansetron is the largest selling anti-emetic product in the world. Sales of Zofran injection in the United States during the 12 months ending September 30, 2006, stood at 628 million dollars.

The drug is being manufactured at the company's USFDA certified sterile formulation plant at Waluj in Aurangabad. Wockhardt has two other sterile formulation plants approved by USFDA in India and the UK.

UNI