Shantha to ramp up capacity

Shantha Biotech, part of French pharmaceutical major Sanofi, is planning to ramp up its production capacity at the Hyderabad facility, which is touted as Asia’s biggest.

“Sanofi has earmarked $300 million to establish a new vaccine manufacturing unit in India over the next three years, as well as for augmenting capacities at the existing facility. We (Shantha) will be investing in training people on technical and quality aspects, improving quality standards, upgrading infrastructure etc,” said Harish V Iyer, managing director and chief executive officer of Shantha Biotech.

Sanofi had acquired a controlling stake in Shantha in July 2009, in a deal that had valued the Indian company at $783 million.

 

The drug maker is expected to introduce the rotavirus vaccine to the market by 2015. “Every year. Rotavirus kills around 100,000 infants in India, and 500,000 globally. The rotavirus vaccine, developed by Shantha, is in an early stage of clinical trials,” Iyer said.

The company is also planning to relaunch the pentavalent Shan5 vaccine by the end of 2013. Sanofi had completely stopped producing Shan5 after the World Health Organisation (WHO) delisted the vaccine from prequalification, based on complaints that a white sediment was found sticking to the vials. However, WHO stated that there were no side-effects reported from this aberration.

“We have made some changes in the manufacturing process of pentavalent Shan5 vaccine. It is the same pentavalent with changes in composition,” he said.