Lupin to invest Rs200 crore in new plant, capacity addition

Mumbai: Lupin Laboratories will invest over Rs200 crore this year to set up additional manufacturing capacities, including a new multipurpose formulation facility

The new facility, to be set up at a special economic zone in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, will conform to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other leading regulatory standards.

Land for the project has been acquired and construction will start soon. Lupin will also create additional capacities for manufacturing active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) at Mandideep in Madhya Pradesh and Ankaleswar in Gujarat, the company said in a release.

Lupin, with 11 manufacturing plants across the country, is currently working on near-100 per cent capacity utilisation. The expansion is aimed at meeting the anticipated growth in business, said Kamal K Sharma, managing director.

Lupin had spent about Rs170 crore last year to expand capacity and for setting up a new manufacturing facility at Bari Brahmana in Jammu.

The Rs2,028-crore Lupin has filed about 51 abbreviated new drug applications (ANDA) with the US FDA and has so far received 23 product approvals. It has 16 products in the market. Lupin plans to file about 15 ANDAs with the US FDA every year.

Lupin's antibiotics such as lisinorpil, cefprozil, cephalexin, meloxicam and sertaline are among the top selling generic drugs in the US market.

The company is planning to focus on the US paediatrics segment, which is valued at about $ 8.5 billion, in the future. The company is also planning to enter the European markets in a big way.

While the company will adopt a direct-to-market strategy in the UK, it is planning strategic tie-ups with leading marketing companies for other major European markets.

It is also looking at acquisition of companies in geographies like Latin America, Japan and the Middle East, Sharma said.

Lupin is the only company so far to get marketing approval in France for Cefpodoxime Proxetil, the generic equivalent of Sanofi Aventis's bacterial infection drug Orelox tablets.

The European patent for the drug will expire within two weeks and Lupin is ready to launch the product. The market for Orelox in France is currently close to Euro 75 million (Rs420 crore) while European sales were about Euro 130 million (Rs750 crore).