Lotus Labs forays into stability studies business

Lotus Labs, a Bangalore-based contract research organisation (CRO), has moved into the sphere of drug stability studies, which measure how the quality of a drug substance varies with time under the influence of temperature, humidity and light.

"After building skills in bio-analytical, clinical research, we are now fully geared to take up drug stability studies for pharmaceutical companies," said Sudhir Pai, director commercial at Lotus Labs.

Currently, the company plans to take up stability studies for its parent company Iceland-based Actavis group, which is the fourth largest generic pharmaceutical company. "After stabilising the operations in another 6-8 months, we plans to take up third party assignments," he added.

In bio-analytical and clinical research operations, the company, in the last six years (since its inception), conducted over 1,000 studies which were successfully placed before US FDA, EU and WHO and has bagged more than a third of its business from companies in the US and Europe.

The Actavis group has appointed Saral Thangam as its managing director and redesignated Sudhir Pai, who was part of the original founder group, as director commercial.

The company, as part of its expansion, has moved to a 60,000-square feet facility in Bangalore to house its corporate office, bio-analytical, clinical and stability studies facility.