Grandix Pharma opens Rs 11-crore new facility

Company eyes Rs 50 crore revenues this fiscal

Grandix Pharmaceuticals Limited (GPL) has opened a new facility near Chennai at an investment of Rs 11 crore.

GPL, which at present outsources all its drug manufacturing, will use the new US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) compliant facility to manufacture its own drugs and also has plans to introduce new anti-diabetes, neurapathy, memory enhancing, anti-cholesterol, anti-alcoholic and liver protective drugs.

"Our new facility is the first plant in Tamil Nadu to be compliant with USFDA schedule M, which comes into effect from January 1, 2005, and cGMP norms. Once the USFDA approval comes through in three years, we plan to tap the lucrative US generics market and expect to achieve a turnover of Rs 100 crore by 2007 ," said A Ramamurthy, managing director of GML.

"Only 25 to 30 per cent of all the pharmaceutical companies are schedule M compliant as of now. We hope to have a first move advantage with our current investment. The facility will start commercial production by next month," headded.

The new facility with a plinth area of 40,000 sq feet will have an output capacity of nine million tablets a month.

The company is looking at doubling its revenues to Rs 50 crore this fiscal as compared to Rs 25 crore the year before. Of the Rs 10-crore revenue Grandix expects from manufacturing, 50 per cent will be generated by its own drugs, while the remaining will come from contract manufacturing for companies in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines and a few African countries. Grandix estimates that the nerve regenerator drug "� Renerve "� alone will rake in Rs 20 crore this fiscal.

At present, Grandix markets 128 products under its brand name in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Orissa and Maharashtra. The Drugs and Cosmetics act, 1945, was substituted with Schedule M in 2001 and there have been various deadlines set, the last of which has been extended to January 1, 2005.