Dishman Pharma is in the news after the US Food and Drug Administration completed the inspection of its Bavla plant in Gujarat. The company had a successful audit with some positive comments from the strictest drug regulator of the world. Speaking to Bloomberg TV India , Dishman Group Chairman and Managing Director Janmejay Vyas says new product launches will help increase its shipment to the US, which now contributes hardly 15 per cent of the total sales. The company is also focusing on Calcifediol, highly concentrated Vitamin D analogue which is much stronger and beneficial than Vitamin D in terms of medical value. Dishman is putting up a larger facility in India for manufacturing the drug, which is a fast-growing segment, he said.

Dishman Pharma’s shares surged after the USFDA completed its inspection of your Bavla plant…

Bavla is a USFDA approved plant. It was a renewal audit of the whole plant. We had a very successful audit, including some positive comment from the auditors.

Was there any halt in production at the plant during the audit?

No. This part (of the plant) is already approved and we are already exporting our products to the US. First, we had a general audit and in between we had two inspection audits, too.

How much of your total exports to the US market comes from this particular facility in Bavla?

Right now, our exports to the US are hardly 15 per cent of our total sales from India. But we have several products in the pipeline that are likely to be launched in the next couple of years by our US customers. And then the US portion of the total sales will be quite significant.

Your Chinese facility was expecting WHO GMP certification in the first quarter of FY17. Have you received the certification already? Has commercial production started from there?

The commercial production has already started. But our customers will be applying for the certification for our Chinese facilities. Audit on that will happen. And then we will apply for the WHO certification.

You have completely moved away from your Vitamin D3 production and entered a high-margin, low-volume category of analogue which also falls in the Vitamin D category. To my knowledge, this drug fetches a price of almost $30,000 a kg. What’s the market size of that segment? What kind of revenue contribution are you expecting from it?

This drug is a highly concentrated Vitamin D analogue, much stronger and beneficial than Vitamin D in terms of medical value. We are already making a range of Vitamin D and Vitamin D analogues at Dishman Vitamins and Chemicals, based in Veenendaal (the Netherlands). We are now putting up a larger facility in India. We cannot put a value because it’s a growing market. Calcifediol is now being sold in the world market in place of Vitamin D3, which was already a known product. So it’s a growing market. As knowledge in the medical industry spreads, the market size will also grow for the new product.

What kind of expansion are you looking at? How much of capacity will you add? And by when can we see the expansion happening?

This is an extremely expensive product that doesn’t require very large facilities. It requires very high-tech facility, which we already have in India and the Netherlands. We have to simply increase production as demand comes.

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