GSK to set up new plant in Nashik

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the second largest drug maker in the world, has announced that the company will set up a new manufacturing production line in Nashik, Maharashtra to manufacture 300 million tablets of albendazole per year for the treatment of Lymphatic Filariasis (LF). 

Production will begin in late 2008 and will double GSK’s current global albendazole capacity. GSK will invest nearly Rs 17 lakh in the facility as well as converting existing equipment to produce the tablets for donation, said a GSK press release.

Worldwide more than 1.3 billion people live at risk of disability and disfigurement caused by LF, and one-third of those at risk live in India. WHO’s Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis, uses once-yearly treatment of at-risk individuals using albendazole plus either Mectizan or diethylcarbamazine [DEC), supplied by GSK and Merck & Co. Since the programme began in 2000, more than 1.9 billion treatments have been given to over 570 million people in 48 of the 83 countries with endemic LF, said the release.