The Hindu Business Line : DSM Anti-Infectives charts growth plans for India

Friendly drug
Purimox contains no solvents and impurities.
It has a shelf-life of five years and the manufacturing process is environment-friendly.

Mumbai , Aug 25

India is expected to play a significant part in Vision 2010 of the Netherlands-headquartered DSM Anti-Infectives. The company has just operationalised its dedicated plant to manufacture Purimox, a penicillin-based antibiotic, at Toansa, Chandigarh.

Every five years, the company does a corporate study and China was the centre of DSM's Vision 2005, where it looked at new markets even as it sharpened its focus on becoming a speciality company, the DSM Anti-Infectives Vice-President, Mr N.V. Ramanan, told Business Line. The company has nine plants and 3,000 people in China now, he added.

India has been identified among the emerging markets of the company's Vision 2010, where innovation will be the focus, he said.

DSM in India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the parent company. Total turnover of DSM in India is $150 million (about Rs 698 crore).

The company expects to complete a market study by December 2006, following which it will formalise its course of growth in the country.

DSM is open to increasing its capacity through acquisition of plants or by setting up green-field projects, he said.

The company has a manufacturing facility in Mumbai in the nutritional segment and one in Pune in the engineering plastics segment.

Safe drug

Explaining the significance of the recently commercialised Purimox plant, he said, the drug contained no solvents and impurities and so was safe for the consumer.

Conventionally, amoxicillin is produced in a synthetic process using strong solvents and chemicals.

Also, the product's stability was high, in that it had a shelf-life of five years and the manufacturing process was environment-friendly.

The Chandigarh plant would also supply to markets in the Asia-Pacific, West Asia and African markets, he said. Purimox is a bulk-ingredient earlier imported from Europe.

Making it out of India would, however, not necessarily bring prices down, he said.

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