The Mumbai based Hikal Ltd. will soon augment its Research and Development capabilities by investing about Rs 30 crore in its facility at the Pune Biotech Park.

The new facility would tap contract research orders from global pharmaceutical companies and the unit would take off soon, Sammer Hiremath, executive director of Hikal told Pharmabiz.

Hikal recently had commissioned a new Pilot Plant at Taloja to contract manufacture an agrochemical product. A new API manufacturing unit was also commissioned at Bangalore and a cGMP kilo lab was set up at Jigani, together at an investment of Rs 50 crore.

He said the company is planning further expansion of its R&D center at Bangalore. Soon it will enter into an agreement with a multinational company. "R&D is set to open new vistas for future growth. With addition of our new cGMP Kilolab along with our existing cGMP pilot plant and API facilities, Hikal is in a position to offer our customers end-to-end solution, from drug discovery support to commercialization." He said.

The company plans to appoint 250 scientists as part of the first phase expansion. The thrust of R&D will be on lifestyle drugs and central nervous system (CNS) drugs. Pune's R&D activity focus on Custom Synthesis and contract research, he said.

The company has filed 8 DMFs with USFDA and is planning to file more in the current year. It incurred an R&D expenditure of Rs 6.77 crore during 2005-06, which worked out to 2.9 per cent of its total turnover. The company has constituted a scientific advisory board consisting of eminent scientists for improving R&D efforts. The aim of R&D is to enable the company to become a partner of choice for life science companies around the world, said Hiremath.