Arch Pharmalabs Limited announced the opening of its expanded operations at its Gurgaon site. Christened as "Project Paschim", the project was initiated around a year back and has now been completed and ready for commencement of production. Malvinder Mohan Singh, CEO and MD- Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, formally inaugurated the facility today.

The project built at a cost of over Rs 50 crore comprises four manufacturing plants, enhanced utilities and top of the line effluent treatment facilities. A state of the art pilot plant has also been built which will address the contract manufacturing ambitions of the company and will produce compounds for both pre-clinical and clinical requirements of innovator companies.

Commenting on the opening, Ajit Kamath, chairman and managing director, Arch Pharmalabs said, "Project Paschim, as the name suggests, is aimed at aggressively targeting the key western markets of US and Europe and will dedicatedly and solely manufacture Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs)."

The facility currently plans manufacture of APIs in the cardiovascular, immuno supressants, anti retrovirals (HIV) and anti malarials. The latter two aim to be a part of various foundation related programmes like PEPFAR, WHO etc. The site is expected to face inspection by the US FDA in the first half of the current calendar year.

Further Ajit Kamath stated that, "At 100 per cent utilization by (2009) the site is expected to contribute close to Rs 250 crore to the topline of Arch Pharmalabs Limited. To achieve this target, Arch has embarked on an aggressive DMF filing programme. We plan to file a minimum of 6 DMF's every calendar year".

The company has tie-ups with leading technology partners like Codexis Inc (USA) and DSM (Netherlands) for co-development and manufacture of APIs and advanced intermediates using proprietary technology. The Gurgaon site is expected to be the site for launch of various APIs under these partnership agreements.