Anglo French Drugs & Industries Limited has invested Rs 6 crore for its plant upgradation programme as a part of its global forays to scout for contract manufacture orders and add on more domestic customers through increased plant capacity and advanced quality control standards. The plant modernisation will enable the company also to launch new products.
The company has plants at Bangalore and Pithampur in Madhya Pradesh. The tableting facility at Bangalore a key in-house production base has also attracted contract manufacture orders from pharma majors including Aventis would go through a mandatory round of modernisation at a cost of Rs 2 crore. At its injection unit in Pithampur Rs 4 crore is invested for an overall renovation including replacement of the batch procedure production line to tunnel process for ampoules. The capacity of the ampoules line will be increased to 50 lakh per month from the current 20 lakh. The other existing vial line will continue to have a capacity of 15 million per month.
"The investments are spurred by the encouraging prospects in the global and domestic arena for contract manufacture, Abhay Kanoria, chairman and managing director, Anglo French Drugs & Industries told Pharmabiz. "We have no plans to set-up plants in the government of India's excise free zones but intend to capitalise on the strengths of our existing facilities at Bangalore and Pithampur. Contract manufacture business will continue to be an important portion of our revenue generation component," he added.
The issue of excise duty on MRP has not impacted drugs in the controlled category and hence we are gearing up for an aggressive promotion of spare capacity at the two plants. We also would consolidate our presence with the existing products and introduce potential new drugs in pain management, nutraceuticals and cough-colds to grab a higher market share, informed Kanoria.
For this financial year ending March 2006, the contract manufacture business is expected to generate Rs 2 crore. The company is confident to close its turnover ending March 2006 at Rs 75 crore with a growth rate of 50 per cent.
The company's B-Plex Forte, a Rs 20 crore brand is ranked third after Pfizer's Becosules and Glaxo SmithKline's Cobadex Forte according to ORG.
Among the new launches include L-Beplex a combination of Lacto-acid bacillus with B-Complex and Zinc, Mycol for nerve disorders and neuropathy conditions, Kinectine Aceclofenac with Paracetamol and Kinectum MR, a muscle relaxant (pain segment) Irofol AZ ( haematinic, Codylx Plus, Codylex DMR and Codylex Linctus (cold-cough) and Maxamin (multi mineral).
The company will further strengthen its sales with its existing therapeutics: vitamins, sleep inducers, anti malarial, protein foods supplements, anti epileptics, anti cold and cough, digestive enzymes, antioxidants and NSAIDs, informed Kanoria.