The first phase of the Serum Bio Pharma Park, India's first biotech Special Economic Zone (SEZ) which was inaugurated in February this year, is readying to start commercial production within two to three months.

So far Serum has invested Rs.180 crore in the park to set up new manufacturing facilities in four buildings at a 55 acre premises located at Hadapsar, next to the Serum Institute's existing manufacturing facility in Pune. Machinery and other required infrastructure have been set up and is awaiting nod from the central Government to start production, informed Adar Poonawalla, executive director - operations, Serum Institute of India Ltd.

He said Serum plans to have five to six manufacturing units at the park, envisaged at a total investment of about Rs 1200 crore. One of the new facilities will be utilised to produce an additional 200 million MMR vaccines. The park envisages manufacturing about one billion doses of various vaccines, in addition to the new generation vaccines under development like the vaccines for pneumonia, rotavirus, and combination vaccines for meningitis, influenza and Hib. One of the facilities will be utilised to produce oncology drugs meant for the US and EU markets, developed and manufactured in association with the Lipoxen Technologies of UK. For this, Serum has already developed a USFDA compliant facility and is in the process of ensuring various regulatory clearances.

He said the first phase would have an investment of Rs.500 crore and the park would be gradually expanded to an area of about 250 acres. A few other pharma firms have shown interest to set up manufacturing facilities at the park at the next stage of development. The entire park would be developed by 2010, said Adar Poonawalla.

He said Serum had plans of acquiring manufacturing facilities in Europe as part of its inorganic growth, but is yet to zero in on any facility. Serum posted a turnover of about Rs.650 crore in the 2005-06 period, of which Rs.Rs.518 crore was generated from exports to various countries. At present one of the two children born in the world are administered with Serum's vaccines, he claimed.

He said the company is also investing about Rs.40 crore to set up three liquid filling lines in its subsidiary at Daman. Part of the facility would be utilised for contract manufacturing and the rest would be used for meeting the additional filling requirements of Serum, he said.

Serum Institute of India is the largest exporter of vaccines and immuno-biologicals of the country with its products being exported to over 140 countries across the globe.