The Hindu Business Line : Hindustan Latex unveils contraceptive for women

Prophylactics major Hindustan Latex Ltd is faced with a "great marketing challenge" vis-à-vis Confidom, the only women-initiated barrier-method of contraception and preventive healthcare.

The public sector unit has earmarked a corpus of Rs 2.5 crore in the current fiscal for promotion and marketing of the product. The challenge assumes all the more significance in view of the fact that the high-end, lifestyle product is priced at Rs 250 for a pack of two.

"Yes, for us it is a great marketing challenge for us," says Mr M. Ayyappan, Chairman & Managing Director, adding that the company hopes to sell five lakh pieces of Confidom in the first year of its launch. The unconventional product, which has been commercially launched in India after two years of research, would be sold in `A' Class cities and has been targeted at women in the 18-35 age group. Advertisements will soon be placed in the print media and the Internet. To begin with, the "female condom" would be being imported from the Chicago-headquartered Female Health Company, which has its manufacturing facility in the UK. With time the product would be packaged here before they are manufactured in India after the overseas partner transfers the technology on royalty basis to its Indian counterpart.

Mr Ayyapan told Business Line that the company was a one-stop-shop for all major types of contraceptives including condoms, oral contraceptive pills, IUDs and injectables. Besides having a capacity to manufacture more than one billion condoms annually, it has diversified into a range of healthcare products, such as blood transfusion bags, surgical sutures, tissue expanders, etc.

According to Mr Ayyapan, the company has started the LifeSpring Hospital chain to provide healthcare facilities in "underserved places". While three such hospitals have already been set up, plans were being firmed up to put in place 1,000 such hospitals of 20-25 bed capacity each across the country. As a first step towards this end, an assistance of Rs 53 crore has been sought from the Union Ministry of Health.

The company, which recorded a turnover of Rs 213 crore in 2005-06, has targeted a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore in 2009-10, Mr Ayyapan said.

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