| Hikal, a Mumbai-based contract research and manufacturing player for pharmaceutical and crop protection companies, is investing Rs 200 crore to set up four new manufacturing facilities in Bangalore and Mumbai and a research and development centre in Pune.
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| Hikal, which today signed a long-term contract with Bayer CropScience for supply of active ingredients for crop protection products, will set up a multi-purpose facility at Taloja in Navi Mumbai with an investment of over Rs 30 crore. Supplies will begin from the second half of this year.
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| “We have the supply agreements with four of the five leading multinational companies in the crop protection business,” said Jai Hiremath, vice-chairman and managing director, Hikal.
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| He said the company was also setting up two manufacturing units in Bangalore to supply pharmaceutical products for Pfizer and
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| Alpharma of the US. Hikal had signed an agreement with Pfizer in January to supply active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for a lifestyle drug and with Alpharma in July 2007 to supply APIs for the veterinary sector.
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| Hikal is also setting a new pharmaceutical intermediate manufacturing facility at Panoli near Mumbai. A new research and development centre in Pune will undertake contract research on processes for major pharmaceutical and crop protection companies. The centre – Accura Research – would house over 250 scientists, said Hiremath.
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| “We prefer to remain as an end to end contract research and manufacturing (CRAMS) player for agro-chemical and pharmaceutical industries,” said Hiremath.
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| He said the company would eye a turnover of over Rs 1000 crore within a few years with an average year-on-year growth of over 30 per cent. In 2007, Hikal had a turnover of Rs 233.7 crore, with Rs 136.8 crore from crop protection products business and Rs 96.9 crore from the pharmaceutical contract manufacturing business. |
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