Concept Pharmaceuticals has signed up a $ 1 million deal for exporting antibiotics with the governments of three Latin American countries namely Chile, Costa Rica, and Dominican Republic for 2004-'05.

As per the agreement, Concept will export veterinary as well as human generic formulations to the governments of theses countries. Antibiotics worth $ 2.5 lakhs will be shipped to Chile, $ 6 lakhs worth products to Costa Rica and $ 2 lakhs worth drugs to Dominican Republic.

The company had signed a $ 3 lakh deal with certain private firms in Nigeria in March 2004 for supply of same kind of antibiotics.

Concept Pharmaceuticals, involved in manufacturing bulk drugs, formulations, veterinary and herbal drugs, had already signed export pacts with German, French and Canadian companies, who will supply drugs to some African countries under their own brand name.

"These deals are additional business opportunities for the company which were added in the recent times," says Hemant Patak, general manager, Export, Concept Pharma.

"We have approached about 40 countries including Philippines, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Sudan, Honduraz, Al-Salvador etc for export of products and the registration processes are speeding up. The registration work for some products in Myanmar, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Ghana is over and the export has started," he added.

Earlier, it had bagged Rs 40-crore contract from a Russian company for the supply of ampicillin sodium and cefatoxim to Russia.

Concept is targeting a business of Rs 150 crore from export in 2005-2006, said Patak.

The company has strong presence in anti-TB, gastrointestinal, NSAIDS, herbal medicine, anti-bacterials, anti-fungals, CVS, anti-inflammatory products. It is also a major manufacturer of beta lactum antibiotics like ampicillin, Amoxycillin, cloxacillin, cephalexin, 7-adca, and 6-apa, vitamins and bulk actives.

Concept has at present three other manufacturing plants at Aurangabad for bulk drugs and formulations and one in Nepal and is planning a Rs 15-crore veterinary drug manufacturing facility at Aurangabad in Maharashtra in the wake of increasing export orders.

Concept Pharmaceuticals has four subsidiary concerns such as Globe Trotus, Concept Labs, Concept International and Concept Nepal. For the year ended March 31, 2004 the group achieved sales of Rs 120 crore.