The Chennai-based ATOZ Pharmaceuticals is setting up a soft gelatin manufacturing plant at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh at an investment of over Rs 4 crore. The company has also plans to start an advanced clinical research organisation (CRO) shortly.

Envisaged as a contract manufacturing facility for the upcoming pharmaceutical projects in and around Baddi and to cater to the manufacturers in the northern region, the project is a totally separate entity, Cosmo Life Sciences. The company would start commercial production by mid-December this year and works are nearing completion, A Olaganathan, managing director of ATOZ Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd told Pharmabiz.

The facility has capacity to manufacture over sixty million capsules per month, and will employ around 50 to 60 people. It will also have a liquid filled gelatin capsule manufacturing facility and a small tableting section. The facility is at a four-acre plot and has a factory built up area of 30,000 sq.ft. The company is in the process of installing a mix of domestic and imported sophisticated machinery, said Olaganathan.

He said ATOZ also has plans to set up a clinical research organisation of global standards, at an investment of about Rs 8 crore in two phases. The first phase is likely to take off by January or February next year, and is yet to finalize the location. The CRO will focus on bioavailability and bio-equivalence studies, pre-clinical and phase I studies, ANDAs, herbal research, impurity profiling, consultancy services etc. The unit would conform to global standards and would attempt to attract work from overseas manufacturers, informed Olaganathan.

ATOZ pharmaceuticals, a soft gelatin contract manufacturer to half a dozen odd leading drug manufacturers, netted a turnover of about Rs 23 crore in the last fiscal. The company has to its credit to have specialized in a few innovations like in-lay tableting, compression coated, gelatin enrobed tablets etc. The company also exports its products to countries like Cambodia, Sri lanka, Vitetnam and plans to start exports to six other countries in near future.