Schering-Plough will establish Schering-Plough Produtos Farmaceuticos Limitada as a wholly owned country operation based in Sao Paulo to market its core products, and will restructure its agreement with Mantefarma, a privately held company in Brazil.

“The actions announced today are part of our long-term global geographic expansion strategy,” said Fred Hassan, SP’s chairman and chief executive officer. “Investing in the Latin America region and other emerging markets represents another step in our journey to transform SP into a global, high-performance health care company.”

SP entered into an agreement in 1991 with Mantefarma to market and distribute several products through Industria Quimica e Farmaceutica Schering-Plough, S.A. Under a new agreement, Mantefarma, which will now be known as Mantecorp, will continue to manufacture a number of SP primary care products.

Miguel Porto has been named general manager of Schering-Plough Produtos Farmaceuticos Limitada, and will report to Pierre Verstraete, group vice president and president, Latin America Region. Prior to this position, Mr. Porto was vice president, operations for the Latin America and Asia Pacific Regions.

Schering-Plough Produtos Farmaceuticos Limitada will assume commercial responsibility for Schering-Plough specialty care products, including Peg-Iintron, Temodal and Caelyx and will also market the primary care products Zetia, Zetsim, Claritin, Clarinex and Nasonex.