Astra Lifecare eyes doubling of turnover from EOU

Astra Lifecare India, promoted by a Gujarati entrepreneur Azizali Bhaidani, is looking at more than doubling its turnover to Rs 50 crore next year from its existing pharmaceutical export-oriented unit (EOU) at Bavla, near Ahmedabad. The company had in 2006 started a formulations manufacturing plant here as a backward integration step to support its drugs trading business in East Africa.

"We have been clocking a compounded annual growth rate of around 70 per cent for the last five years, and are now working on expanding our capacity at the Bavla plant. We are confident of touching a turnover of Rs 1000 crore in the next five years.", Bhaidani claimed.

He added that Astra Lifecare will complete the capex process by April this year. It is in the middle of expanding capacity by around 2.5 times from the current capacity of 10 million tablets and 5 million capsules per day. "We have utilised only 20 per cent of the 24,000 square meter land available at the site. There is still a huge land parcel left with us to accommodate our future expansions." Bhaidani informed.

The company decided to set up a plant in India as it gives a 25-30 per cent cost advantage, besides access to skilled manpower. Bhaidani is the majority shareholder in Astra Pharma Uganda Ltd and Astra Pharma Tanzania Ltd that are originally trading companies that source generic formulations from across the world and sell in East African countries of Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda among others.

"Currently, the turnover of both these companies combined is around Rs 200 crore, and we are able to supply formulations worth only Rs 50-60 crore from our India facility.", he said clarifying that Astra Lifecare India is an independent entity and not a subsidiary of the African companies.

Astra India aims to end this fiscal with a turnover of Rs 70-72 crore. It will continue to maintain its focus on the East African market, as it feels there is still huge market potential to tap. "The size of generic formulations industry in Uganda is around $175 million, and we have managed to capture a market size of around $22-25 million. Similarly, for Tanzania it is around $ 250 million, and we manage to sell worth $ 15-17 million," Bhaidani says.

However, banking on the Indian government's Focus Market Scheme that spans across East African, Latin American and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries, Astra Lifecare is also looking at entering the Latin American markets in the longrun.