Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala (AVS) has invested Rs 12 crore to set up its third production plant at Nanjangud, off Mysore in Karnataka. The facility has been commissioned today by the state medical education minister Ramachandra Gowda. The Schedule T compliant unit has up on a Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) land spanning 8.35 acres. This is the third unit for the PS Warrier’s Arya Vaidya Sala Kottakkal. The other two manufacturing units are located at Kottakal and Kanjikode, Kerala which is only engaged in the production of classical drugs. The Nanjangud unit has been designed to produce patented and proprietary drugs. These will include range of active pharmaceutical ingredients for the Kashyas. In addition, it will manufacture tablets, granules and gels.

This is for the first time that Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala has moved out of its traditional production environment in Kerala to Karnataka for production of drugs. “With the growing demand for Ayurveda patented and proprietary drugs, we opted for Karnataka to establish the production centre. The key factors which led us to set up an advanced plant here are the easy access to land and perennial water availability from the Kabini River in the vicinity of Nanjangud”, Dr SG Ramesh, Nodal Officer for the Arya Vaidya Sala Kottakkal, Nanjangud told Pharmabiz in a telecom.

The process of acquiring land and setting up the facility took three years. The unit has a pre-processing and processing section apart from clean room among others. It will have a total personnel strength of 40. Although the key team are part of the Arya Vaidya Sala Kottakkal facility, there is a major chunk of local people on the rolls, he added.

To begin with, the Ayurveda therapy major will transport all the raw material for the drug production from Kerala, but it is keen to source the same from Karnataka at the earliest. In this regard, it has identified contract farmers to grow its range of herbs and plants, which will make the Nanjangud unit self-contained, stated Dr Ramesh.

Karnataka is already home to 175 Ayurveda companies. The leading names in Banglaore include The Himalaya Drug Company, Natural Remedies and Madhur Pharma.