Indoco Remedies Ltd (IRL), the Rs 200-crore pharma company, is spreading its international business by establishing new subsidiaries in foreign countries. The company, which has set up subsidiaries in U K and Netherlands, is planning to set up another subsidiary in South Africa.

This will boost its exports on one hand and assist in filing of ANDAs, DMFs and Dossiers in regulated markets. The company is now planning to setup third subsidiary Indoco SA Pty Ltd, in South Africa which will facilitate in acquiring product licenses, marketing of products, filing of own DMFs and Dossiers in the regulated markets of UK, USA, South Africa and other countries.

Earlier, IRL had incorporated a 100 per cent subsidiary called Indoco UK Ltd with an initial paid up capital of British Pound 100 through its another subsidiary viz Indoco Holdings, Netherlands BV. Both the subsidiaries have not yet commenced the operations. IRL has invested Euro 45,000 in the paid-up capital of its Netherlands subsidiary.

The company's exports during the year ended June 2005 moved up by 117 per cent to Rs 29.08 crore from Rs 13.41 crore in the previous year. It commenced the exports of Acyclovir cream to Europe during last year and validation batches for two additional products will ensure exports to UK from early next year. The company has sold its first dossier in CTD format to a customer in Europe, which has established IRL's capability in dossier preparation.

IRL is expanding its production capacities by installing facilities at Baddi and Ambernath. The Baddi plant with an investment of Rs 25.79 crore is likely to go on stream by October 2005. The plant is set up as per the guidelines of UK MHRA, South African MCC and WHO.

The company is also setting up a new bulk drug manufacturing facility at Ambernath in Maharashtra on a plot having area of 20,000 sq. mtrs. The cost of the project is estimated at Rs 22 crore and this will help for backward integration in supply chain. The Ambernath plant will facilitate the preparation of DMFs in CTD formats for regulated markets. The company has incurred an expenditure of Rs 0.12 crore till June 2005.

In addition to the company's Research and Development Centre in Andheri and a pilot plant at Verna- Goa, the company is setting up a new state-of-art R&D centre to facilitate research in API's and formulations for the regulated markets. This would help the company undertake contract research and file its own dossier/ DMF's in the regulated markets. The R&D expenditure increased to Rs 4.57 core.