Kalam to inaugurate Relisys Hyderabad facility tomorrow

President APJ Abdul Kalam will inaugurate Asia's first catheter and stent manufacturing facility in Hyderabad on June 29.

Set up by Hyderabad-based Relisys Medical Devices Limited at Ibrahimpatnam on the city outskirts at an investment of Rs 30 crore, the facility will have one lakh sft of built-up area including 20,000 sft for production.

It will also house a separate R&D wing to include radioisotope, cell culture, analytical, metallurgical and design laboratories in line with product development activities in a built-up area of 10,000 sft.

Disclosing this here on Wednesday, NG Badari Narayan, managing director of Relisys Medical Devices, told mediapersons that the facility would have the capacity to produce 2 lakh stents a year including 80,000 drug eluting stents, besides 1.2 lakh diagnostic catheters and 20,000 guide catheters.

"The first batch of the stents will be rolled out in the next 15-20 days, while it will take another five months to launch the catheters," he added.

Stating that around 35 million cardiac diagnostic procedures are being carried out a year in India, for which around one million stents are required, Narayan said the company would offer the same to domestic customers at a very affordable cost.

"At present, a catheter costs Rs 4,000, and a medicated stent Rs 1 lakh while a non-medicated stent is available for between Rs 40,000 and Rs 50,000, most of which are imported. We expect our products to lessen the cost burden on patents by 40-60 per cent. When the market increases, this can be further brought down," he said.

According to him, the company has set up the facility in compliance with the US FDA norms and as per the requirements of global Good Manufacturing Practices standards.

"We are also looking at the export markets, particularly in Europe. We are at present in the process of obtaining the CE Marking, which we should be getting in the next eight months. However, we will design a dual price and dual product policy for the export markets," he said.

Revenues from the facility in the first year will be modest as the company is focusing mainly on getting regulatory approvals. It expects around Rs 100 crore revenues from the third year, Narayan said, adding that the company hoped to garner profits from 15 to 20 per cent capacity utilisation.