Cipla Ltd has tied up with Dongbao Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, a Chinese company for the import of bulk DNA materials required in the manufacture of human insulin at its manufacturing facility in Goa, it is learnt. The imported bulk DNA material from Dongbao will be formulated into insulin at Cipla's facility. Dongbao is a listed company on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and is the only producer of human insulin in China.

"The insulin produced by the Dongbao Group is of highest quality and meets the US-American FDA-standards in full scale. In addition to that its insulin is lower priced compared to many manufacturers world-wide," said sources.

The recombinant human insulin-production process was patented in 1999. Starting with human insulin, Cipla also has plans in the long run to manufacture other recombinant therapeutics like Erythropoietin, interferon, and G-CSF, they said.

Cipla has spent about Rs. 50 crore in setting up its biogenerics facilities. The facilities have come up in the same location, where the company set up a new Rs 100 crore manufacturing complex during 2001.

Pharma analysts tracking the company feel that Cipla would enter the biogenerics and recombinant products segment in a gradual way. "As the generics market is opening more wide, Cipla would give its maximum focus in this front. It would diversify into biogenerics only in a gradual way," Sameer Narayan, a pharma analyst at the Mumbai-based Enam Securities, an equity analysis and brokerage outfit.

Cipla currently manufactures bulk drug and formulations at five strategic locations across Mumbai, Goa, Pune and Bangalore. Banking on its strengths in formulations development and manufacturing, Cipla has entered into a string of supply contracts with generic companies in the US and Europe. The company currently exports to around 140 countries.