Anglo-French Drugs & Industries Ltd (AFD) has invested Rs 40 lakh this year to spruce up its 35,000 sq.ft-WHO GMP compliant production plant at Peenya in Bangalore to increase its spare capacity. Out of the investment, Rs 10 lakh is allocated for joint less floor technology for stores and granulated areas apart from separate entry for the production area and other related units.
An amount of Rs 9.5 lakh has been set aside for air handling systems for the Schedule M requirements. Earlier, the company had invested Rs 1.5 crore for total Schedule M compliance.
The company has two manufacturing plants each located at Bangalore and Pithampur. The Bangalore facility, which is for tablets, has two production bays, one for AFD products and the other is a dedicated area for Aventis Pharma product 'Combiflam' where around 75 million tablets a month are manufactured. Its plant at Pitampur, an injectibles unit, was the first in the country to introduce the tunnel concept for Injectible production in 1992, where AFD currently manufactures an anti malarial drug, 'Combimal' injections for Ajanta Pharma.
AFD has made substantial investments in contract manufacturing because scores of pharmaceutical units today gauge in-house manufacture for all their products as non-productive investments. The company intends to capitalise on its production capabilities by offering its full-fledged modern plants for contract manufacturing services on a business-to-business arrangement. "We are aggressively pursuing to attract global drug manufacturers who are keen to cut cost and outsource drug production from pharmaceutical units in India. The business of contract manufacturing is viewed as lucrative alternative for revenue generation," Mukund M Atre, general manager- Technical, Anglo French Drugs & Industries Ltd. told Pharmabiz.com.
The company has initiated a dialogue with many companies globally to consider outsource production from Anglo French. Currently, the turnover of AFD is Rs 60 crore out of which contract manufacture generates revenues to the tune of Rs 2.5 crore.
The nine-decade-old Anglo French drug brands are in the areas of vitamins, nutrition supplements, anti cough, anti cold, digestants, sleep inducers, anti-epileptic, anti malarial, and cardiovascular drugs. It has a significant presence in East Europe, South East Asia, Middle East and Latin America. Recently, AFD launched 'Codylex DMR' for pain management and 'Homoxid' an antioxidant category. Another pain management drug 'Ecoxib' is scheduled for launch in September end. Plans are also underway to develop a rare combination of an anti diabetic drug where AFD wants to outsource production to save costs.