Hyderabad: Drug maker Aurobindo Pharma Ltd on Tuesday said it is planning to scale up its capacity as it expects more launches in its key US market and also plans to make India its sourcing hub for its Western European generic drug business that it had acquired from Actavis Plc.
The Hyderabad-based company said it will set up three new plants in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over the next 12 months and will also ramp up the capacity of the existing ones.
It has began work on three new projects that include oral solid finished dosages facility at Naidupet in Nellore district (Andhra Pradesh), oral finished dosage facility for European markets in Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and new semi-synthetic penicillin plant at Jadcherla, near Hyderabad (Telangana).
The three new projects will be part of Aurobindo’s ₹ 900 crore proposed capital expenditure plan for this financial year. All expansions and new projects will partly go live in 2015-16 and the balance in 2016-17, the company said in its annual report.
“The capacity building efforts are to provide further opportunities for the existing products, cater to a growing product portfolio, as well as to service the Western European markets,” managing director N. Govindarajan said.
“Amongst peers, Aurobindo has emerged as one of the top abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) filers,” said Sarabjit Kour Nangra, pharma sector analyst with brokerage Angel Broking Ltd.
He said the company has aggressively filed ANDAs in the last few years. It is now geared to reap benefits even though most of the filings are for highly competitive products,” Nangra said.
Aurobindo has filed 379 ANDAs until 30 June, of which around half of them were filed in 2014 and 2015.
In January last year, Aurobindo bought loss-making commercial operations of Irish multinational drug maker Actavis for €30 million and US-based nutritional supplement maker Natrol Inc. for $132.5 million in a bankruptcy auction.
As part of its turnaround plan for Actavis, Aurobindo is taking advantage of its low-cost manufacturing base in India, along with launching its own product range in the injectibles and generics segments. “The objective is to optimize on costs while enlarging volume and value,” Govindarajan said.
The drug maker said it is developing 15 products for it oncology segment, and is planning a potential launch in 2017-18.
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