The Hindu Business Line : Nicholas Piramal to invest Rs 200 cr in R&D, expansion

WITH alliances and exports being focus areas on Nicholas Piramal India Ltd's radar - the company is set to pump in Rs 200 crore to beef up its research and development (R&D) capability, besides strengthening its manufacturing facilities.

The company has established a new R&D facility at Goregaon which is expected to be completely operational by about August this year, Mr Ajay Piramal, NPIL-Chairman, had said after the company had announced its results here recently. The facility is estimated to have a capital expenditure of about Rs 70 crore, company officials said.

Elaborating on the scale of R&D-related activity that NPIL was going to witness this year, Dr Swati Piramal, NPIL's Director-Strategic Alliances, told Business Line that the new facility was three times the size of the current facility. And with 190 scientists, the company was looking to increase its scientific base by almost four times, she said.

The company also recently announced plans to set up an office in the UK, with an accent on R&D, Dr Piramal said. "We are looking to collaborate with scientists from the UK and Canada, since as a company we have the capabilities in terms of lead optimisation and manufacturing, for instance," she said.

NPIL clocked exports of Rs 100 crore last year, of which about Rs 50 crore came from the sales of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) in Switzerland, Germany and the UK, officials said.

APIs are the raw material that go into a medicine and NPIL's total API exports was about Rs 70 crore. About Rs 30 crore export sales came from the sale of formulations or finished dosage forms of medicine in emerging markets. The company looks to clock Rs 160 crore exports in the current fiscal.

Recently, the company had set up an office in the US as well, to be close to the world's largest pharma market, besides looking for research collaborations in Canada.

The Rs 200-crore that would be invested would be raised through internal accruals, company officials said, given that NPIL had posted healthy results and was looking at a sales growth of 18-20 per cent. Besides, the Rs 70-crore investment in the R&D facility, another Rs 32 crore would be sunk into the Pithampur plant that supports NPIL's deal with US-based AMO to manufacture ophthalmology (eye-related) products.

The rest of the investment would go into expansion of other manufacturing facilities that make API and formulations - as a precursor to NPIL inking more customised manufacturing alliances with global innovator companies. Two such deals are expected by September this year.

More Stories on : New Projects | Pharmaceuticals

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Maxfair Drugs to set up R&D centre at Nasik

Nicholas Piramal to invest Rs 200 cr in R&D, expansion

Revathi Equipment signs PPA with Rajasthan SEB — To set up windmill project

`We want to be biggest in fragrances too'

SAIL may have to relocate stockyards at Bhubaneswar

IMFA Group's ferro chrome production higher

Zacks India chief set to head ICRA's BPO unit

New ED for BHEL (Hyderabad)

New Group GM for HMT unit