The Chennai-based Bafna Pharmaceuticals Ltd is planning to set up its marketing operations in the Sri Lankan pharma market for branded generics by registering product dossiers for lifestyle diseases. With this, the company, which has been supplying generic products to the Sri Lankan market, is shifting its focus to capture a share in the branded generic market.

The company has already set up its marketing branch - Bafna Pharmaceuticals Sri Lanka - and currently is in the process of registering dossiers for 14 products in the country on lifestyle diseases like type-2 diabetes and heart disease, according to Mahaveer Bafna, managing director, Bafna Pharmaceuticals Ltd. The company is currently marketing 68 generic products in the Sri Lanka and its operations in the region accounted for almost 50 per cent of the company's business in the last financial year.

"Currently the Sri Lankan market is gradually getting matured to occupy the branded generics drugs and we want to explore this potential in the coming years. We are shifting our focus from generics to branded generics and expect to launch the first 14 products before the end of the current financial year," said Bafna. However, the company will retain its presence in generic market by retaining the current supplies, he added.

The company has crossed Rs20 crore sales in the Sri Lankan market in 2007-08 and is expecting a 25 per cent growth in the first year of its branded generics marketing operation in Sri Lanka. Though the market growth was affected by the civil war, the industry in the country is growing at a natural pace and the Indian companies have no major challenges to face in marketing their products in the country, he averred.

The company manufactures more than 125 products, including 27 lifestyle drugs and holds around 336 licenses in its name. Bafna Pharmaceuticals received the 'Best Supplier Award' from the State Pharmaceutical Corporation of Sri Lanka in 2005.

The company, which offered equity shares to the public through an Initial Public Offer (IPO) recently, has of late received Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approval for its facility meant for exports to the UK markets and European Union.