The growth of the pharmaceutical machinery market in Karnataka has been vibrant going by the massive expansion in manufacturing in the last nine months.

According to pharma industry analysts, the machinery market is buoyant and has registered a growth rate of more than 50 per cent. The market size in the south has doubled over the last year and is now estimated at Rs 40 crore. Substantial orders, demand for a range of machinery and improved productivity tools have induced significant changes in the plant machinery front which has led to a sudden spurt in production.

Companies in the state have invested from Rs 15 crore to Rs 20 crore towards pharmaceutical machinery. These include Micro Labs, Strides Arcolabs, Mederieich Sterilab, The Himalaya Drug Company, Bal Pharma, who have gone for new plants to enter regulated markets. Plants of GlaxoSmithKline Beecham, AstraZeneca Pharma India and Banner Pharma Caps have also upgraded systems for higher productivity levels.

Biocon Limited, which has been on a major machinery investment spree has recently procured an imported formulation liquid injectible for its new product Insugen.

To increase the turnover in the domestic markets, companies like Micro Labs and Bal Pharma have realigned their plans and gone in for new facilities at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh mainly because of tax and excise benefits. This has again led to an increase in machinery installation, stated sources from the pharmaceutical sector.

A series of plans have been lined up by contract manufacturing units in the state like Kemwell, BPRL, Remidex Pharma who have upgraded the existing facilities to seek international regulatory approvals. Contract manufacturers have to revamp units and replan them to meet the needs of the MNC counterparts. Advanced production machines are crucial for such units, stated analysts.

The growth in the pharma machinery sector is mainly attributed to the need for medium sized companies to survive in the post 2005 era and increase their export earnings by entering regulated markets.

Among the smaller units, the main investments in machinery have come about because of their need to abide by Schedule M norms. The increase in investments in machinery alone has been to the tune of 3 crore, stated an analyst.

In order to keep pace with the international requirements, the analysts have noticed that machinery manufacturers have introduced an innovative line-up to enable companies to improve their production skills. Under the circumstances, the current trends in the pharma machinery have been to go in for fail-proof systems with validatable documentation processes, human-machine interface to eliminate human fatigue errors and to achieve consistent quality.

Another aspect in machinery investment is that the new machines should be in line with packaging methodologies where small size batches and high volume can be maintained.

In order to provide advanced solutions in production systems, pharmaceutical machinery suppliers are now selling imported machines from Korea, and Europe (Italy and Germany).

"Parle Tools International, one of the group companies of Parle Tablet Tools, is the Indian associates for Sejong Pharma Tech, Korea for automated tablet press, capsule filling machines and auto coating system and Hoonga corporation - Korea for automated blister pack machines among various other machines. It is one of the forerunners in the country to bring in imported machinery technology.

Even other pharmaceutical machinery majors operating in Karnataka like Precision Gears, Serwell, Eriez MBI, SMI have been marketing imported machines.

Local players like the Bangalore-based Sri Balaji Pharma Engineering Works which has been a regular supplier to units in the state intends to go national going by the orders it got last year.

Karnataka does not have leading national machinery manufacturers. There are a handful of players like Cadmach, Precision Gears, Parle Tablet Tools and Associated Group. The small players in the state depend on the orders like machinery updates, after sales service and spares replacement.