BOGOTA, Colombia – Montevideo, Uruguay-based Grupo Biotoscana (GBT) is moving forward with the acquisition of an Argentine company even as it released weak results for the third quarter.

The biopharma announced the acquisition of Laboratorio Dosa SA, of nearby Buenos Aires, one day before reporting revenues were down 3.3 percent, which left the company with 8.4 percent growth in revenues in constant currency during the first nine months of the year.

"The third quarter was unfortunate disappointing in terms of revenues," said CEO Mariano García-Valiño during a post-results call. "We are not happy with the results and we have aligned several things in the company to recover from them." But "we also believe that, fundamentally, our strong strategic agenda has not been affected [by the third quarter results] and we continue to advance it in several fronts."

Even as it moves to recover from a weak quarter, the company is looking to leverage its new acquisition.

"For GBT, this deal makes sense in multiple ways," said García-Valiño. "It allows GBT to expand into the very promising respiratory and pulmonary therapy area with some products that are already successful and [with] a rich pipeline of products. This will provide the base for several other license-based opportunities," he added.

GBT paid $29.9 million for Dosa, a company primarily focused on pulmonary diseases that also owns a diverse portfolio of oncology, hematology and HIV products.

The recently acquired company has a strong dependence of the Argentine market, which accounts for about 85 percent of its revenue.

The GBT acquisition could help the company tap into new Latin American markets such as Brazil, Colombia and Peru, an important factor for GBT.

"By combining Dosa's strong portfolio with GBT geographic reach, we expect a significant geographic expansion," explained García-Valiño. "Dosa's dossiers are of good quality and we believe we can distribute them widely in the region. Dosa is already exporting to several countries like Colombia, Peru and Brazil."

And while GBT integrates Dosa's operation with its own, the company is taking an aggressive approach with a series of recent registrations in the Latin America region, a robust pipeline, strategic agreements and more mergers and acquisitions under consideration.

During the third quarter of 2017, GBT entered the Mexican market with Abraxane/Abraxus (nab-paclitaxel), which was also presented in Brazil last month and has been marketed in the Latin American giant since early November. Abraxane is an injectable formulation mainly used to treat lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and breast cancer.

On the antibiotics front, the company registered Zevetra (ceftobiprole) in Argentina, and it expects to launch the intravenous antibiotic during the first quarter of 2018. The company also started registration processes in Brazil and Mexico, and the company expects a positive review from Anvisa, Cofepris, respectively.

"Our new products continue to do well, our launches are going as scheduled, our pipeline has been refreshed with an exceptional agreement with Eisai Co. Ltd., in which we acquired four tremendous assets for the region, and the ability to immediately launch products in Brazil and Mexico, which will impact our numbers as soon as 2018 first quarter," he explained.

The company also registered Zavesca (miglustat) in Panama in the past month. It expects to launch the product in the Central American country during the first quarter of 2018. Zevasca is used in the treatment of type I Gaucher disease. It was originally developed by Oxford Glycosciences plc, from Slough, U.K.

Beyond the registration of new products in the Latin American region, the company also signed an agreement with Eisai, of Tokyo, to license four novel molecules in the region: Halaven (eribulin mesylate), Lenvima (lenvatinib), Fycompa (perampanel) and Inovelon (rufinamide).

"Halaven is already marketed in Brazil and the sales transition was done in October, consolidating full results for November and December 2017," the company said. The other three molecules are expected to be launched in Brazil during the first semester of 2018.

But novel molecules are not the only bet in the region for GBT. The company is also shopping around and looking for M&A opportunities.

"We are in discussion with several other opportunities in Mexico, Central America and Colombia, aligned with the company's growth strategy," the company said in its quarterly report.

"In general terms, the company remains with the same strategy, advancing well, with key initiatives fuelling up the pipeline and executing well on our new launches," said García-Valiño.