Cipla gets compulsory licence for AIDS drugs
Mumbai: Cipla Ltd expects to ship its consignment of anti-AIDS drugs or anti-retrovirals (ARV) to Malaysia in a couple of months, following the issuance of a compulsory licence by the Malaysian Government for the supply of ARVs to Government-run or public hospitals in Malaysia.

The ARVs that Cipla will be exporting are generic or chemically-equivalent versions of Didanosine 100 mg and 25 mg tablets, produced originally by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) and Zidovudine 100 mg capsule and the combination drug Lamivudine 150 mg + Zidovudine 300 mg tablet — both from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

A compulsory licence allows a country to over-ride an existing drug patent and get other companies to supply the same drug at a cost decided upon by the Government. A royalty payment was to be made to the innovator company, whose patent would be "broken" when a compulsory licence was issued.
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Petronet to start commercial operations from April
Hyderabad: Petronet LNG Ltd will begin commercial operations from April, with the company having received its first LNG tanker, built in Korea, last month. The second ship of the company, now under construction, is to be delivered in September. The company would be importing LNG from the Qatar-based Ras Laffan Liquified Natural Gas Company Ltd with which it has a contract for guaranteed supply of LNG for 25 years.

The company, a joint venture of GAIL (India), ONGC, Indian Oil and BPCL, is coming out with an initial public offering of 26.1 crore equity shares, and hopes to raise Rs 750 crore through the public issue, which will be used for doubling the capacity at its 5 million tonnes LNG terminal at Dahej in Gujarat. The public offer opens on March 1 and closes on March 9.
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Veronica's ayurvedic AIDS drug soon
Mumbai: Veronica Laboratories Ltd has said that it has started commercial production of Herbovera, its ayurvedic formulation for HIV patients and it expects to launch the product across the country by the second quarter of this year. The company has found the initial results of the clinical trials encouraging, and has embarked on multi-centric trials at various premier medical institutes throughout the country.

The formulation Herbovera has been found to nullify the loss of immunity observed in HIV positive patients, besides blunting their susceptibility to opportunistic infections. The company is making efforts to get international patents.
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Goldstone to hike capital
Hyderabad: Goldstone Technologies Ltd has informed the National Stock Exchange that the company has resolved to increase the authorised capital of the company to Rs 30 crore and issue warrants of Rs 61.50 lakh equity warrants/shares on a preferential basis. Also it intends to issue GDRs or other instruments for an aggregate amount not exceeding $15 million.
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Ashok Leyland launches its LCV in Andhra
Hyderabad: Ashok Leyland Ltd has announced the launch of Ecomet, a light commercial vehicle, in the Andhra Pradesh market. The Ecomet is fitted with a fuel-efficient Hino engine that offers six-speed overdrive with synchromesh gearbox that offers better pickup.
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Godrej Consumer Products for buyback of shares
Mumbai: Godrej Consumer Products Ltd has informed the BSE that it is seeking the approval of its shareholders, by way of a postal ballot, for buyback of fully paid-up equity shares of Rs 4 each from the open market at a price not exceeding Rs 200 per share payable in cash, for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 8.4 crore. The completed postal ballot forms should arrive on or before March 31 and the results will be announced on April 19.
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Thomas Cook: Q1 net profit at Rs 8 crore
Mumbai: Thomas Cook (India) Ltd has posted a profit after tax of Rs 8 crore in the first quarter ended January 31, 2004. This represents a 24 per cent growth on the figure for the quarter ended January 31, 2003. The tour and financial services operator follows the financial year from November to October in alignment with its international parent, Thomas Cook Group.
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Rolta happy with RoltaSecure
Mumbai: Rolta India Ltd, held a seminar to spotlight RoltaSecure, a eSecurity service that helps organisations identify security risks/threats by using a continuous security management process. Rolta's eSecurity solution, launched last August, has received a "good" response, and the company says that over 150 customers were using the solution currently. The licence costs for the solution was Rs one lakh per annum, which worked out to about Rs 300 per day. A subscription-based security service, RoltaSecure provides turnkey services comprising Vulnerability Notification Service (VNS), Vulnerability Assessment Service (VAS) and Remote Monitoring Service (RMS), apart from value-added products and tools designed to meet the needs of most organisations.

Rolta has the Exim Bank, the Bank of Baroda, and the Central Bank as its customers for the product.
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Hughes Escorts plans hub in Bangalore
Bangalore: Hughes Escorts Communications is to set up a disaster recovery services centre in Bangalore. The company, which claims a 70 per cent market share in the end-to-end solutions in VSAT communications plans to invest Rs 75 crore to set up the centre. The Bangalore centre will become one of the 13 hubs providing a host of communications services for enterprise network market. It is expected to be operational by the end of June this year.

The company plans to set up a 30-city Virtual Private Network (VPN) facility to offer secure, pan-India terrestrial connectivity to enterprises. VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) communications, which remained a little known segment of the telecommunications sector, has made a sudden leap in the last three years. The company hopes to increase its VSAT installations from the current 9,000 units to 1.5 lakh units in about five years.

The company also plans to expand its `DiRECWAY' platform, its latest offering in the satellite broadband space, to tap the huge market potential in the large enterprise, dealers, distributors, small office/home office and consumer segments.

Hughes Escorts, is a joint venture with the US and the Indian company holding equal stake of 49 per cent each, and financial institutions, the remaining two per cent of the equity. The company has maintained an annual growth of 20 per cent in its revenue, reaching Rs 200 crore in 2003
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VoiceGate: Integrated call centres
Hyderabad: Voicegate Technologies India, a technology solutions provider, has launched two of its products Parishkaram and Rashtravani, which are centralised contact and information service centres, for citizens of Andhra Pradesh. These services would now be available to the citizens by dialling 1100 and 1250200 respectively from any BSNL phone within Andhra Pradesh. Other phone services will be linked up gradually.

Twenty-six departments have been identified and their frequently asked questions have been put on the server in a digitised voice format. With the Parishkaram service, a citizen can dial the toll-free number 1100 to get information on various state departments and register their grievances as well. These grievances would be forwarded to the respective departments for further action through Web, e-mail, SMS or voice calls, as appropriate given the circumstances.

Rashtravaani, on the other hand is a fully automated 24 hours service wherein all the information pertaining to the State departments has been hosted on a server. If, for example, you wish to know how to apply for an electricity connection, you will have to dial 1250200 and select the department - AP Transco in this case, and the necessary information and formalities for the service would be provided.

Earlier, VoiceGate had made passport procedures available on the phone, in association with the Regional Passport Office, Hyderabad on behalf of BSNL.
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