Caraco looking at shifting production to India

Also considering selling some of its third-party products.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries’ US -based subsidiary, Caraco, which is facing a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ban on manufacturing, is looking at shifting production of some of the drugs to India.

The company will, however, remain focused on addressing the issues related to manufacturing and compliance raised by the FDA, Caraco CEO Jitendra N Doshi said in its annual report.

Doshi said Caraco was also considering selling some of its products, made by third party manufacturers, through some other facility, including its parent company, Sun Pharma.

“We may also transfer certain manufactured products to an alternate manufacturing site that could allow the company to gain revenue from those products in less than six months,” Doshi said.

He added, “We currently have products that are manufactured by third parties, including Sun Pharma.”

Sun Pharma Chairman Dilip Shanghvi said the firm had not yet taken any decision on shifting production of drugs from the US subsidiary to its Indian facilities.

“The decision to shift manufacturing from Caraco to Sun would be taken on product-to-product basis and till now we have not taken any decision in this regard,” Shanghvi said in a conference call with analyst last week.

In June, on the request of the FDA, US marshals seized products manufactured at Caraco's Michigan facilities, including raw materials, alleging violation of Good Manufacturing Practice norms.

Later, Caraco announced it had entered into a consent decree with the FDA under which it would take a series of corrective measures that would enable the company to resume manufacturing and distributing of products made in Detroit.

“Though near-term sales of manufactured products will surely be impacted, we believe we are effectuating the changes required to manufacture products in a plant that meets regulatory requirements,” Dish said.