The Mumbai based pharmaceutical company Titan Laboratories Pvt Ltd is investing Rs 3 crore in the existing manufacturing facility at Mahad on Mumbai-Goa highway. The company is strengthening its analytical development capabilities and doubling its current manufacturing capacity for producing ready to fill pellets, taste masked and DC granules. The expansion is expected to get over by March 2008.

The company has the capability for manufacturing these pellets like conventional coating pan, fluid bed processor and extruder + spherodizer process and it is in advanced stage of talks for co-development and contract manufacturing under license with leading Indian pharmaceutical companies.

Speaking to Pharmabiz, Piyush Shah, managing director said, "With the help of our state of the art cGMP approved facility, we are targeting European market and other regulatory markets in a big way. At present we are focused on developing volumes and client base by becoming leading supplier of RTF pellets in semi and un-regulated markets. We are investing more than Rs 3 crore for doubling our capacity. At present our capacity is 10 - 12 tonnes per month for pellets and DC granules".

The manufacturing facility is approved by Maharashtra FDA for Schedule M compliance and already applied for WHO-GMP. The facility is currently approved in Iran and also by some of the customer specific audits of Colombia and Brazil and is awaiting inspection from its foreign buyers. Its R&D has been inspected by Maharashtra FDA and received test license for more than 50 pellet products. The lab is equipped with GMP scale down manufacturing equipments and latest analytical instruments.

The company is actively involved in manufacturing of anti- BHP, anti- spasmodic, anti- depression, anti- obesity and Ornidazole taste masked granules. At present it caters to more than 30 countries.

It is actively working on the development of nano technology and new drug delivery system (NDDS) based products. Titan is continuously investing substantial amount on research and development. At present it has more than 10 new first to market generic products in the pipeline.

Talking about inorganic growth, Shah said, "We are open for the joint ventures and acquisition actively. Our ideal candidate company is one who can add customer base and help us move up the value chain in terms of increasing market share in regulated market and increase contract manufacturing business. For the next five years time we are aiming to have our strong presence in the US and Europe within next 2-3 years following our principal of non compete with customer and providing pharmaceutical formulation intermediates with full regulatory support and approved facility".