Shasun Pharmaceuticals Ltd is planning to expand its contract manufacturing business by partnering with multinational companies to manufacture their patented products for Indian and Asian drug markets. The new business, started almost three months ago, is bringing in revenue of Rs 5-7 crore at present and the company expects this to grow to Rs 25-30 crore by next fiscal.
The company has already tied up with two pharma companies for manufacturing their patented products in its formulations manufacturing facility and is in discussion with two more companies for a similar tieup, said S Abhaya Kumar, managing director, Shasun Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
Under the model, the Shasun would manufacture the patent protected drugs of MNCs at its manufacturing plants, taking responsibility of necessary regulatory and quality aspects, to be marketed across India and other Asian countries and Europe.
“In this business, we will have 50 per cent more margin than the traditional margins for manufacturing. For the MNC partners, they don’t have to worry about the regulatory or quality side since we do manufacturing,” he said.
Besides manufacturing, it would provide research capabilities to the partners for assignments to modify the formulation. The raw materials are sourced from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved facilities. It has already started manufacturing of tablets including diabetes, cardio vascular and antipsychotic drugs.
The company has been into the contract research and manufacturing services (CRAMS) business, offering contract manufacturing and custom synthesis services to both Indian and foreign players, for the past several years. However, it was only handling R&D and manufacturing for generic drugs. “All along, we were providing services to generic drug manufacturing. The new business enables us to provide quality service to bigger pharma companies,” he added.
