Alembic to commission Sikkim plant this fiscal

Vadodara-based pharma company Alembic Pharmaceuticals is all set to commission its formulations plant in Sikkim within this fiscal.

The company hopes to bring down outsourcing of manufacturing for the domestic market from a current 50 per cent to 15 per cent within two years of commissioning the facility.

Alembic would join a host of companies from Gujarat which have set up manufacturing facilities in this north eastern state to take advantage of tax benefits.

Companies like Intas Pharma, Torrent Pharma, Zydus Cadila etc already have facilities in Sikkim, where there is a ten year relief (from the date of commencement of commercial production) on central excise as well as income tax exemption, incentives on substantial expansion of capacity as well as capital investment subsidy.

Units that would start production within 10 years of the notification which came in 2007, would be eligible for these benefits for the next 10 years.

Alembic had firmed up plans for setting up a unit in the tax haven around 2008, and aims to commission the Rs 100 crore facility with a capacity of 2.5 billion tablets and capsules within the end of this fiscal.