Shreya Life Sciences Ltd, the Indian subsidiary of the $ 420 million Moscow-based Shreya Group, would be making an entry into the recombinant insulin market in India and abroad. The company, which wanted to make a strong presence in the growing insulin market, has already started setting up a green field plant in Pune for production of human insulin.
Targeting an overall growth in both pharma and bio-pharma in the years to come, the company is also planning significant investments in the basic R&D, said Sujit Kumar Singh, chairman and managing director, Shreya Life Sciences.
Speaking to Pharmabiz, Singh said that the company would be investing close to Rs 30 crore for setting up another manufacturing plant at Aurangabad to increase production capacity of its oral solid brands. Already, the company has a manufacturing plant at Aurangabad that caters to the production of majority of its formulations.
With current expansion plan, the company is now projecting the earnings at Rs. 350 crore for the year 2004-05, an increase by almost 75 per cent from their current 200 crore earnings for the year ending March 2004.
"While bulk of our earnings come from the export markets (nearly 45 - 50 per cent), we plan to strengthen our base in the areas of biotech and R&D, which would be the driving forces in the years to come. Having earned Rs 200 crore for the year 2003-04, we would be exploring all possible avenues for increasing our stake in the market for the forthcoming year and have earmarked a tentative Rs 350 crore income for the period 2004-05", he added.
Launched in 2001 through the acquisition of Rallis Pharma for Rs. 49 crore, Shreya Life Sciences has managed to put up a good show at the domestic as well as international markets. After acquiring the pharma business of Plethico Pharmaceuticals for a modest Rs 30 crore in 2003, the company has been riding high with some top-notch brands, which have managed to propel the growth of the company.
"Our top line products include Digeplex (digestive enzyme) and Aspsiol (for cardiac patients) which bring in close to Rs 12 crore of the earnings. Aspisol, which was launched only three months ago, is the only kind in its class, where the aspirin is coated with a mixture of glycerin to make it highly palatable. The product has been well received by the cardiologists and has even managed to make it in the latest ORG-Marg list only three months after its launch", said Dr. Chandrasekaran, Business Development Manager at Shreya Life Sciences.
Apart from the domestic operations, the company has plans to expand business and operations to other CIS and African countries. This would be by networking through the 33 regional offices spread across CIS, Africa, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Currently, Shreya Group markets and distributes 4500 products of over 200 global pharmaceutical companies and enjoys strategical partnership status with leading multinationals including Aventis, Sanofi, Merck, GSK, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's etc.The Group employs close to 2300 people in Moscow and a further 1000 people in India.