Dr Reddy's relocates its UK arm to Cambridge

India's leading pharmaceutical firm Dr Reddy’s Laboratories has moved its UK subsidiary,Chirotech, to a new purpose built lab facility at the Cambridge Science Park.

The new 33,000 sqft facility will provide a range of small molecule manufacturing services for both Dr Reddy’s and to third-party pharmaceutical companies as part of the firm’s contracting business.

"Apart from growing the existing chemocatalysis and biocatalysis business, the new site will have capabilities in fast growing segments like activated mPEGs and peptides," Chirotech site head David Chaplin was quoted by pharma journal in-Pharmatechnologist.Com.

According to Chaplin, Dr Reddy’s also plans to expand the facility’s  40-strong workforce.

"The new facility has provisions for an initial doubling of scientific staff while providing for further capacity additions in future," he said.

"The majority of our scientists are synthetic organic chemists, many with expertise in Chirotech's focus areas of chiral technologies, particularly chemocatalysis and biocatalysis.

Alongside the chemists we have analytical scientists and biologists. We would expect further expansion to cover these activities as well as specialists in particular new areas of interest," he added.

Earlier, Dr Reddy’s CEO GV Prasad had said the decision to invest in the UK was due to the access, the science and the talent available in the country.

"The UK is an expensive location, but it has talent we could not attract in India. The UK is more appealing because of its 'ecosystem' of links to universities and biotech companies."

The new Cambridge facility also fits with Dr Reddy’s plans to grow its custom pharma services business (CPS), which now has a network of three R&D centres and eight API manufacturing plants in India, Mexico and the UK.

Europe is a particular growth target as according to Chaplin "the region contributes about 35 per cent to the overall PSAI [Pharmaceutical Services and Active Ingredients] business revenues.

Our CPS business aims to be the preferred partner for innovators world-wide by offering a comprehensive basket of services with competitive pricing, speed and additional IP.”

Welcoming the investment, Minister for Trade and Investment, Lord Green said, "We are very pleased to welcome this new investment by Dr Reddy's into the UK."