The Hyderabad-based MSN Labs is building a new R&D facility in the industrial area of Pashamylaram in Hyderabad at a total investment of Rs 40 crore. The company has already acquired about five acres of land for this greenfield facility and it will be utilised for both API's and the formulation.
The R&D facility will be ready in about two years and the centre will host more than 350 scientists/chemists. The company has made the investment of Rs 2 crore till now from the time the work started in October 2009.
According to Bharat Reddy, executive director, "Our technology development centre will have close to 40 labs (process chemistry, process engineering, formulations). Apart from that we will have kilo labs and pilot plants. This will be a complete Green building." Apart from the R&D centre, the company is also investing on a new formulation facility in the SEZ area in Hyderabad . The company informed that they would start working on this project by end of 2010-11 or beginning of 2011-12. The tentative capacities of the formulation facility will be two to three billions units.
The company's strategy is to bring brand new (first in India) generics to India. It has applied for 10 such products already with DCGI, out of which, Bosentan, a drug used against Pulmonary Arterial Hypertensio (PAH) has been approved and two are under approval process. For the year 2010-11, the company is working on 10 new products.
MSN Labs is a preferred supplier of around 80 APIs to leading global generic players like Sandoz-Hexal, Teva Ratiopharma, Zentiva, EGIS, Gideon Richter, etc,. The company has filed for 62 Indian and 22 international patents. It has published 30 Indian and 18 international patents. The company has filed more than 30 drug master files (DMFs) for the US and the European market. On the finished dosages front, the company has an annual capacity of half a billion solid dosages and twenty-five million injectibles. Vertical integration of finished dosages facility with its API facilities is practised for complete business solutions. The company makes more than 75 formulations for the domestic as well as for the rest of the world market.
Annually the company invest about Rs 5 crore for R&D. MSN group has achieved a sales of Rs 369 crores for FY 2010.
MSN Labs was established in 2003 and was promoted by Dr MSN Reddy, former R&D head of Dr Reddy's Labs as an API manufacturer and began making formulations in 2007. It has four API manufacturing units (facilities), one facility for finished dosages and a dedicated research and development centre.