The Uttarakhand based Needs Pharma Pvt Ltd is planning to initiate a major export drive to the US and European Union and also to the unregulated markets. The company may soon join hands with some of the domestic pharma majors to enter into these highly regulated markets.

As the part of its exports strategy, the company has recently commercialized its new solid dosage formulation facility at Roorkee, Uttarakhand, with a built up area of 40,000 sq ft. It will focus on pain management, GI, psychotropic, cardiology, diabetology, and anti-infective segments. The Rs 8.2 crore facility is built up to meet the specifications of MHRA, WHO, TGA and Schedule-M and the quality control is ready to comply with NABL accreditation eyeing on contract manufacturing and export prospects, informed Sachin Mittal, director of Needs Pharma Pvt. Ltd.

"The company is currently negotiating with some major Indian companies like Cipla, Wockhardt and Piramal Healthcare for entering into regulated markets. We expect the agreements to be signed within a month time," Mittal told Pharmabiz.

The new plant will also support the company to commence exports to unregulated markets. The company is planning to export its products to Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan within the next financial year. The company also revealed that its expansion plans include export to Maldives, Mauritius, Kenya, Togo, Niger, Ghana and Cameroon within next two years.

The new facility with latest automation advancements is expected to scale up the total production of the company to 13200 millions of tablets, 2800 millions of capsules, 19,20,000 litres of liquid orals and 1,40,000 litres of external preparations per year.

"We also want to continue to retain our position in this technological era and therefore are working on newer formulations and delivery systems. This strategy is particularly identified because it has significant lower idea to market throughput timelines and therefore we can introduce new products faster which will help us to initiate a number of significant deals with large generic and companies in the domestic and export markets", Mittal confirmed.