The Raichur-based Shilpa Medicare, an active pharmaceutical major, has inked a memorandum of understanding to acquire Austria's Loba Finchemie in an all cash deal.

Loba is a privately owned, profit-making specialty active ingredients organic intermediates and biochemical diagnostics major. It has a Euro cGMP and US FDA compliant facility.

The due diligence is on and the details of the all-cash deal would be announced later. The company would finance the deal through its internal resources and debt, said, Vishnukant Bhutada, managing director, Shilpa Antibiotics.

The acquisition would help its growth in the anti-cancer and CRAMS (contract research and manufacturing) segment, he added.

Loba, which was set up in 1987, with an annual revenue of $ 15 million (around Rs 60 crore), has two WHO GMP certified plants and is setting up a third export-oriented plant exclusively for oncology APIs in Raichur in north Karnataka with an investment of Rs 75 crore. Its 2006-07 turnover was Rs 67.4 crore of which exports constituted 76 per cent. The company focuses on custom synthesis and oncology APIs.

The company is already exporting to USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and European countries, including Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and United Kingdom, apart from several countries in South America, Africa and Asia.

Some of the leading APIs in the company's kitty are Ambroxol HCl, Ticlopidine HCl, Buflomedil HCl, Nifedipine, Lamivudine Sildenafil Citrate, Terfenadine and Aceclofenac. Apart, Loba's oncology products include Gemcitabine HCL and Docetaxel.