Hetero Drugs to export bird-flu drug
Mumbai: The Hyderabad-based drug company Hetero Drugs has been given a license to start exporting bird-flu drug Oseltamivir to Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Hetero is the only Indian company that has been given a sub-licence to make and market Oseltamivir by Roche, the Swiss drug-maker that markets the drug globally under the brandname Tamiflu.

Srinivas Reddy, Hetero's director-marketing said the company would apart from exporting five million doses of the bird-flu drug to Indonesian company Indofarm would also transfer technology on the drug to the Indonesian company. The Indonesian market he said is crucial as humans have tested positive to the bird-flu virus.

Hetero is also in talks with companies in Bangladesh, including Beximco, to market the bulk ingredient or the finished dosage form of the drug. There were no royalty payments between these companies he said. He said that the company was had the rights to sell the drug to semi-regulated and unregulated markets and only the US and European markets, where product-patents are protected, were off-limits for Hetero.
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Bombay Dyeing's new facility to come up in Pune
Pune: Bombay Dyeing is setting up a new manufacturing facility in Ranjangaon near Pune with an investment of Rs250 crore. The plant would become operational by May 2007. The facility would be spread over 4-lakh sq ft. With the plant becoming operational, the company plans to phase out its existing facility at Worli. The Worli plant currently produces a lakh metres of cloth every day and the new plant would have a capacity to roll out 1.5-lakh metres of cloth every day.

The new facility would have all processes which included weaving, spinning, processing and would currently cater to the bedsheets and towel range. The plant is expected to cater to both the domestic and the export markets for this range.
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Visesh Info obtains KPO deal from EcoStar
New Delhi: Visesh Infotecnics has obtained a knowledge process outsourcing order from US-based Fortune 500 company, EcoStar Communications Corporation. Visesh expects the order to generate $20 million revenues in the first year. The KPO order was bagged by `Cyberworks Visesh LLC,' a US joint venture between Visesh Infotecnics and US-based Cyberworks Software Inc.

The company will invest Rs35 crore this year for increasing its delivery capacity in India, and is also looking for acquisitions in the US market. The company currently has 120 seats in Gurgaon, and is looking at increasing the capacity to 1,200 seats either within Gurgaon or in some other location informed Sanjiv Bhavnani, Visesh Infotecnics CEO and managing director at a conference here.

The order involves VSAT dish sales process and the customer support operations. EcoStar delivers direct broadcast satellite (DBS) television products and services through its Dishnetwork to its customers worldwide. The KPO operations of Visesh commenced last week from Gurgaon under its new business division for outsourcing `V-Connect.'
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Red Hat ties up with Lotus Learning
Hyderabad: Red Hat, an open source software provider, has tied up with the Hyderabad-based Lotus Learning Systems Society to promote open source education in schools.

This initiative is part of Red Hat's commitment to modernise the Indian education systems by promoting learning through IT and usage of open source technology as a platform for learning.
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Burmans sell 1.5 crore Dabur shares, net Rs.184.5 crore
New Delhi: The Burman family has sold 1.5 crore shares of Dabur India at Rs123 per share netting Rs184.5 crore in the process. With this, the shareholding of the promoter family in Dabur India has come down from 76.72 per cent to 75 per cent.

The promoters carried out the equity dilution to comply with statutory requirements as Sebi has made it mandatory for promoters to dilute their holding to 75 per cent as a pre-condition for allowing the existing Balsara shareholders to list the Dabur shares, pursuant to the merger of Balsara with Dabur India.
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Fiesta sales higher than Ikon's in February
New Delhi: Sales of the Ford Fiesta, launched in December 2005, have outstripped those of the Ikon and the former has emerged as the second largest selling mid sized model replacing the Honda City. Tata Indigo emerged the largest selling mid-size sedan in February this year followed by the Ford Fiesta at second place and the Hyundai Accent at third place.

The Fiesta sold 2,281 units in February, compared with the Accent's 2,090 and the Honda City's 2,077.

Tata Indigo took the honours with sales of 3,653 units. Since its launch, the Ford Fiesta has clocked sales in excess of 10,000 units (to date) and is expected to report sales of 4,000 units in March this year.

The 1.6-litre version of the Ikon will continue to be sold in India, to be produced on booking orders by dealers.
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