Reliance Life to set up hospitals, make drugs

Reliance Life Sciences is planning to invest at least Rs 1,000 crore to set up hospitals in the country's metros and dispensaries in small towns. This is in addition to a similar amount the company has already committed for drug manufacture.

The company is reported to be in talks with various parties across the country for acquiring hospitals. Reliance Life Sciences is also planning to invest approximately Rs 1,000 crore for setting up four state-of-the-art facilities to manufacture generic drugs, discover molecules for new drugs and take contracts for manufacturing drugs for other pharmaceutical companies.

Last year, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said the group's future prospects lay in healthcare and life sciences. A source close to the company said healthcare would become the group's primary focus in about two years. Part of this business would be owning and running hospitals.

The group currently owns and runs HN Hospital in Mumbai. The foray into drug manufacturing will start with the setting up of four FDA-compliant facilities near Mumbai and Pune.

Work on the first facility will begin in March. "Mechanical completion of this will take three months, following which validation will take one month. Commercial production should start by August or September this year," said a source.

As its profits mainly lie in royalties, Reliance Life is expected to actively pursue research for discovering new drugs.

"Contract manufacturing should (also) be a lucrative business. As the company will have large FDA-compliant facilities, all major pharmaceutical companies are expected to enter into contracts with Reliance," said another source. The source added that nearly 50-60 per cent of the medicines sold in the country were spurious and the company would be looking at correcting that imbalance with drugs.