The Hindu Business Line : Shasun Chem to invest $3 m in leased US facility

Chennai, Jan. 28 The Rs 793-crore Shasun Chemicals & Drugs Ltd (SCDL) has leased a lab in Piscataway (New Jersey) in the US that would be used for contract research and manufacturing activities.

The facility, in which Shasun will invest $ 3 million, will help in the development of bulk drugs.

Mr Vimal Kumar, Whole Time Director, Shasun, told Business Line that the company did not expect great revenues out of this facility since it is only a lab.

“However, it will help us build a healthy pipeline (of orders),” he said, adding that the investments would be paid back in the first year itself.

Leasing the facility would help us achieve the objective without actually investing more. “As part of our Rhodia acquisition, we did not acquire their lab facilities. Later we realised that we need to have lab facilities to continue our product lines,” he said.

The company is looking at about Rs 920 crore as topline during the current fiscal, he added.

Restructuring

On restructuring the company, he said the company was looking at splitting the manufacturing and research divisions, “but asset wise it was not possible. We would rather wait till our Visakapatnam facility comes up and latter take a call.”

The Visakapatnam facility, coming up at an investment of Rs 120 crore would be fully operational in two years from now, he said.

The first phase would be ready by January 2009, he and added and that the company would be manufacturing CRAMS products.

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