Iceland generic pharma major Actavis has inked a definitive agreement to acquire a manufacturing plant from Grandix Pharmaceuticals, a manufacturing and marketing company based in Chennai, for an undisclosed amount. The company intends to increase the manufacturing capacity to approximately four billion tablets over the next 18 months and strengthen the development and regulatory affairs units.

Early last year, the company set up an R&D centre in Bangalore at the site of the Lotus Labs a contract research organization (also acquired in early 2005 by Actavis). Today Lotus Labs has the capacity to complete over 160 bio-equivalence studies a year and the ability to reduce the Group's R&D expenditure. The Bangalore Actavis R&D unit employs 60 specialists and is working to develop 10-15 products in 2007 and the first one is already in progress.

Actavis made these acquisitions, which are a part of its backward integration strategy in India.

Grandix provides Actavis with its own cost-effective manufacturing capability in India and a facility from which to develop and manufacture products for the US and key markets in Europe. The company also intends to use the facility as a manufacturing site to develop and re-launch older products as many of these products need lower cost base to be competitive in the international marketplace.

Commenting, Robert Wessman, CEO and president of Actavis said: "This is another exciting acquisition for Actavis and a strong extension of our activities in India. The new facility will enable Actavis to further reduce its manufacturing costs and provide the support and expertise necessary to extend our growth into key European markets and the US. I believe this is an important step for Actavis that we now has a full backward integration in India with a growing API development unit, in addition to one of the strongest CRO companies in India".

The decade-old Grandix employs over 100 people at its manufacturing plant in Alathur, approximately 40 km from Chennai. Its products include solid oral dosage formulations with a current annual production capacity of 700 million tablets. The company submitted its first US ANDA in June 2006. The acquired plant will operate under the Actavis name and the company will not acquire any other business from Grandix, which will continue its other activities.