After Hyderabad, the costal city of Visakhapatnam (Vizag) in Andhra Pradesh is poised to become the next pharma hub of the country. Among the expected 150 investors, already 90 have commenced their operations of which 35 are fully functional. During the past four years, the Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City at Paravada in Vizag had attracted many giant global drug companies. Prominent among them include Hospira from USA, Eisai from Japan and PharmaZell from Germany.

The Pharma City is full and it could attract investments around Rs.10,000 crore in the next five to six years, providing direct employment to at least 50,000 families and supporting around 1.5 lakh other families and businesses through indirect employment. It is also expected that the park will contribute around Rs.8,000 crore (US$1.5 billion) each year through pharma exports.

Given the synergy of networking, India will have several advanced molecules made from this Pharma City in the next ten years. It will also help tremendous progress in driving the trends in discovery, thereby placing India among the select groups of countries at the top.

In fact the pharma city is likely to tilt the balance in the pharma sector in favour of Andhra Pradesh. The presence of the industrial park will make it a formidable competitor to Maharashtra, which currently occupies the top slot in the sector. Andhra Pradesh also has around 21 SEZs (special Economic Zones) dedicated to the pharma and biotech sectors spread over an area of 1,216 hectares.

The pharma city is being developed on a PPP (Private Public partnership) mode. The total cost of the project is about Rs.315 cores with 89 per cent share with Ramky infrastructure Limited and 11 per cent stake of Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC). It spreads across an area of 2400 acres and has excellent infrastructure with well developed roads, common effluent treatment plants and a well connected national highway. The aspiring new units can enjoy the benefits of having hassle free environment clearances from the ministry of environment and can save major chunk of capex and time.

“The park already has a special environment with green belt and pollution free surroundings. It offers SHE (Safety Health Environment) expertise, reliable utility infrastructure such as a energy, water, fire re-hydrant system, common ware houses and common public infrastructure which could considerably reduce the upfront cost for each individual unit,” Dr Lal Krishna, the chief executive officer of Pharma City, said.

“Apart from having local knowledge and skills, be it manufacturing, design, regulatory, chemistry of human resources, Pharma City also enjoys an edge over others in terms of lower cost for setting up new units,” added the CEO.

In the near future, the Pharma City is also planning to get equipped with sophisticated R&D and testing laboratories such as stability labs, bio-equivalence centres and advanced testing laboratories to comply with quality requirements of US and European Union.

So far, the companies which have been allotted sites in the park include Biocon from Benguluru, PharmaZell from Germany, GmbH, Eisai Company Limited from Japan, Orchid Chemicals & Drugs Ltd from Chennai, Shasun Chemicals & Drugs Ltd, Chennai, Amrutanjan Ltd from Chennai, Andhra Sugars Ltd from Tanuku, Mylan Laboratories Limited, (Formerly Matrix Laboratories Limited), GVK Industries Limited from Hyderabad, Aptuit Laurus Pvt. Ltd., Smilax Laboratories Limited, Hetero Drugs Pvt. Ltd., Sai Advantium Pharma Ltd., Vijayasri Organics.

Thanks to the visionary approach adopted by the state government, its continuous push has helped the pharma sector as one of the vital economic contributor with more than 40 per cent for the State’s GDP.