Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd will soon add a state-of-the-art formulations manufacturing facility at Irungattukottai near Chennai for the manufacture of CNS and cardiovascular formulations as part of its plan to enter into diverse therapeutic groups.

The multipurpose plant, with US FDA compliant facilities, will come up at the 25-acre Irungattukottai factory premises where Orchid has already set up a US FDA compliant world-class cephalosporin formulations manufacturing facility. The plant is likely to be ready by middle of next year, for commencing the regulatory submissions process.

This will be supported by similar US FDA compliant R&D labs, kilo lab and API plant to come up in its API facilities.

At present, the non-cephalosporin segment contributes roughly 3-4 per cent to company's turnover of Rs 713.14 crore. The move is expected to contribute significantly once production gets on stream by 2008. The company has identified 15 to 20 key high value life saving drugs for export-oriented production. It is too early to divulge more details and this product diversification would help the company to achieve a figure of USD 1 billion turnover by the turn of this decade, Dr. C B Rao, deputy managing director of Orchid told Pharmabiz in an interview.

It may be noted that Orchid had recently concluded its three-year long process of Rs 480 crore capacity expansion, including the oral and sterile cephalosporin manufacturing plants at Irungattukottai, Alathur and Aurangabad, besides R&D and drug discovery infrastructure at Sholinganallur. Further, it had also announced its plans to mobilize upto $75 million as part of its long-term growth plans for further product diversification, US generics foray and other regulated markets and for setting up additional US FDA compliant infrastructure for drug development.

Dr. Rao said the company's business model has potential to offer a quantum jump in revenues as many blockbuster drugs are going off patent in the 2005-'08 period. Orchid has already filed 11 US DMFs and 18 EU DMFs for APIs, and four ANDAs with the USFDA for formulations. The company has identified 15 high value products from its cephalosporin product basket for launch in the US and European markets, and will file 11 more ANDAs with USFDA during the current fiscal.

The company has already tied up marketing arrangements in US for its cephalosporin products, and will concentrate on country specific strategic marketing alliances to tap the regulated European markets. Orchid has also identified Brazil, Russia and Latin America as potential future markets. The company has also entered the Japanese market, which constitutes about 18 per cent of the US $ 30 billion global anti-infective market, with a few intermediates, said Dr. Rao.

While talking about the joint ventures, Dr. Rao said the NCPC-Orchid Pharmaceutical Limited in China for manufacturing sterile cephalosporins, operational since January 2004, has the potential for a turnover of US $ 20-25 million during the 2004-05 period.