The Netherlands based Purac, a world leader in the pharmaceutical lactates and mineral gluconates, is likely to open a direct sales support office in India by 2005. India is currently under its Asia Pacific regional office. The company, which has a very active market presence in the subcontinent currently, anticipates a major growth in the customer base in another two years. Hence the plan to open a direct sales support office for a value added customer service, said Haiko Zuidhoff, regional sales manager, Purac Asia Pacific.

Haiko Zuidhoff, while talking to Pharmabiz at the 14th CPhI Worldwide in Frankfurt, said that India is emerging as one of the critical and fast growing markets for the company and a more customer-oriented approach would be necessary in the market.

"Though we would continue the existing marketing channel, which is through local agency route, we want to provide direct customer care in the critical areas where the customer is in need of our specialized technical support," he said.

Ever since the import duty on lactic acid, its derivatives and mineral gluconates, have been drastically reduced in India, the market has been growing at around 35 to 40 per cent per annum, he added. Until 1985, the import duty on these products in India was in the range of 150 to 200 per cent. However, thanks to the liberalized import policy of the government of India, since the duty has been reduced to 25 per cent, a major chunk of the pharmaceutical industry users could shift to the internationally recognized quality products, Haiko said.

Lactic acid, its derivatives and mineral gluconates are used in many pharmaceutical applications mainly for slow release systems. The use of Purac products in the pharma industry is mainly into parenteral solutions, dialysis solutions, mineral preparations, drug delivery systems and skin treatment. As the company has passed the US FDA audits as a bulk pharmaceutical chemicals supplier, its product range currently measures up to the highest quality standards demanded by the pharma industry worldwide. At present the company has offices in the UK, Poland, Germany, Russia, Spain, Hungary, France, USA, Brazil, Singapore, China, Korea and Japan.