Claris Lifesciences, an Ahmedabad based Rs 400 crore pharmaceutical company, is planning to set up a new Research and Development (R&D) centre at Ahmedabad. The centre is expected to start operation in 2008. The financial details of the investment plan for the R&D centre is not available.

The company is engaged in the manufacture of products and delivery systems such as enteral and parenteral nutrition, anaesthesia, blood products and plasma volume expanders, anti-infective, dialysis and transplant, cardiac care, infusion therapy as well as medical disposables and equipment.

Talking to Pharmabiz, Arjun Handa, chief operating officer of Claris, said, "We are appointing approximately 100 research scientists in our new R&D centre at Ahmedabad. On the export front, we are entering into the Russia, Philippines, Algeria, Egypt, Vietnam and Indonesia next year. The company has around 65 products in the pipeline for various markets. "

Globally, the company operates in more than 67 countries, through its subsidiaries, offices and marketing/distribution network, and a diverse customer profile covering institutions, major corporate hospitals and international aid agencies. "We are appointing one lakh distributors across the world. We added new sales force in India, which will take care of our domestic business", he added.

The company is hoping to achieve 40 per cent growth rate in the next fiscal year. It is also expecting that US FDA will give approval to their 9 products. The company will also add several new products in their product basket.