The Rs 100-crore ALB Healthcare Pvt. Ltd is entering the manufacturing of tablets with a new unit at the excise-free zone of Roorkee in Uttaranchal for exclusive contract manufacturing and loan licensing.

The new unit, to be made operational in a couple of months, will have the latest facilities and would comply with the Schedule M and GMP norms at the fast emerging pharma cluster of Bhagavanpur, company director Amit Bajaj told Pharmabiz.

The Ghaziabad-based group has a three-year-old successful joint venture diagnostic centre, the Apollo Clinic, with the Apollo Group besides having varied interests in other sectors like distribution of petroleum products.

The unit, Bajaj Pharmaceuticals, with an initial investment of Rs 2 crore will have the capacity to manufacture up to 45 lakh tablets per day in three shifts. Already machineries and other facilities are in place to make it operational at the earliest. Talks are already on with pharma majors like Cipla, Ranbaxy and Apollo Group for formalizing ties in either contract manufacturing or loan licensing, Amit said.

"More and more units are moving to Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh to advantage of the excise exemption and other benefits in the clusters. Moreover, the manufacturing of drug offers huge potential. There are only a few units in the country which cater to exclusive contract manufacturing, '' he said.

The company is waiting for the drug licence and has plans to look towards to foreign collaborations after two years in the domestic sector.

The diagnostic centre has tie-ups with a number of corporate houses and banks to extend preventive healthcare packages and health checks on long and short term basis. Apollo Hospitals Group pioneered the preventive health packages and has so far to their credit more than four lakh health checks.