Reliance Life plans Rs 1000 cr plasma protein facilities

Reliance Life Sciences is planning four state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities for the production of biopharmaceuticals including plasma proteins in the country.

The company is to invest Rs 1,000 crore in the next six-twelve months for setting up these facilities in various parts of the country. While two plants are to come up in Maharashtra and Gujarat, the other two are likely to be located in north India.

According to RIL sources, the excess capacities at these facilities will be used for contract manufacturing. All plants are to be of USFDA standards, it is learnt.

RIL has already launched a range of plasma protein products "� albumin (Alburel), intravenous immunoglobulin G (ImmunoRel), factor VIII (HemoRel A), fibrin sealant (Reliseal), virus inactivated plasma (Reliplasma) "� during the last one month. The company has lined up more products for the future, RIL sources informed.

On the market potential of these products, RIL officials informed that that the market for plasma products is yet to evolve in the country. "Until RIL launched its products, we were having only imported medicines that were at least 40 per cent costlier. Now that our products are available, we hope to find these products being used by over two million hemophilia (blood disorder) patients," they said.

Currently, RIL has a WHO GMP approved pilot manufacturing facility in Mumbai to produce plasma proteins. This is only such facility in the country.

RIL claims its plasma protein products are safe and have long life as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screening for viruses is done at each stage of production and viral inactivation technologies are used in the manufacturing processes to ensure product safety.

According to them, their products have been well received by the medical community all over the country.