Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, May 20, 2004 |
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Corporate
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New Projects Sandoz opens third plant in India Our Bureau
Mr Jagdish V. Dore, Managing Director, Sandoz Private Ltd (left), Mr Mag Hudert Hirzinger, Head Pharmaceuticals, Sandoz GmbH, and Mr Christian Seiwald, Chief Executive Officer, at a press conference held in Mumbai. — Shashi Ashiwal
Mumbai , May 19 SANDOZ, the second largest supplier of generics medicines in the world, has opened its third plant in India at Kalwe, Navi Mumbai. Built at a cost of $13 million (Rs 59 crore), the Kalwe facility is part of Sandoz's $80-million (Rs 365 crore) global expansion of its production network — with three new plants this month in Poland, India and Romania. Behind Israel's Teva, the world's largest producer of generics or chemically-equivalent drugs, Sandoz is the generics arm of Swiss pharma multinational, Novartis AG. The current plans to beef-up production comes even as this month marks Sandoz's first anniversary of its consolidation of Novartis' generics business under the Sandoz brand name. "India will be a major contributor to achieving the ambitious goals we've set out within Sandoz," Mr Christian Seiwald, Chief Executive Officer of Sandoz GmbH, told mediapersons late on Tuesday. With the company expecting its sales in the US to "overtake Europe in the near future", he said that the new plant in India would largely support supplies to US. The US is the world's largest generics market and contributes 38 per cent of Sandoz's total sales of $2.9 billion clocked in 2003. Europe accounts for 44 per cent of the company's worldwide sales. America, without the US, accounts for about five per cent for sales and other markets contribute about 13 per cent of total sales, he said. "There is a considerable cost-advantage (in manufacturing from India), as compared to Europe and the US," he said responding to a query. "For any player in the generics industry, it is a must to be in India," he added. In India, Sandoz Private Ltd (SPL), is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Novartis AG, and has clocked a turnover of Rs 295 crore last year. The Kalwe plant will add another 200 people to its headcount of 1,000-strong employees in India, the CEO said. Headquartered in Vienna (Austria), the company employs 13,000 people worldwide. The Kalwe plant has a production capacity of one billion tablets and capsules per annum and is expected to go on stream next month, he said. The plant could be scaled-up to produce five billion tablets and capsules, if required, he added. The plant is in the process of getting regulatory approvals from the US and European authorities. Sandoz in India has two other units located in Kolshet in Thane and Turbhe in Navi Mumbai. Kolshet, the oldest unit in the Sandoz family, is a development centre for finished dosage forms of medicines and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). The Turbhe site, built in 2001, is an export unit and produces oral cephalosporins for regulated and unregulated markets, he said. The company looks to grow "organically", he said, ruling out plans of making an acquisition in the local market. However, the company would look at opportunities with a business fit, he indicated. "The high price-to-earnings ratios of Indian pharmaceutical companies were a deterrent," he added.
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