Medicorp Technologies To Set Up Joint Venture In Jordan

While Medicorp will hold 51 per cent stake in this venture which is to be set up in Amman, United Engineers will hold the balance 49 per cent. MTIL will invest $50,000 in this project.

Managing director R Sundara Rajan told Business Standard that Medicorp is awaiting the Reserve Bank of India clearance for the foreign investment in this project. The joint venture will also be used for transfer of technology for new units in the Arab world with MTIL collaboration and exports, he said.

Medicorp is also putting up a Rs 40-crore project in Savili, near Baroda, through group company Pharmaceuticals India Ltd for manufacturing formulations for the international market. This will be taken up after expansion of MTIL is completed in about a year. The group company is likely tie up with foreign companies for a buy-back arrangement and for marketing of the formulations.

 

At present, MTIL is setting up a Rs 29.8-crore bulk drug and drug intermediates manufacturing facility at APIIC Industrial Estate, Pasha Mylaram, Medak district, near Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh.

Sundara Rajan disclosed that Shriram group as promoters has brought in Rs 9 crore and financial institutions are contributing Rs 14.2 crore. The balance Rs 6.60 crore is to be raised through an equity issue by the middle of next month. ICICI and SCICI have been given firm allotment of Rs 1 crore worth of equity shares and the offer to the public will be Rs 5.5 crore.

The bulk drugs unit will have a multi-purpose manufacturing facility to produce 100 tonnes per annum. In the first phase, 11 bulk drugs which fetch high value of over $100 a kg and above, will be produced.

The plan now is to sell 30 per cent of the drugs in the domestic market and the rest 70 per cent in the export markets.

A major feature of the unit, Sundara Rajan said, is the appointment of Quara SA of Switzerland for quality assurance and good manufacturing practice (GMP) as a dedicated culture from the very beginning.

Besides, Quara's representative Anthony D Plane has been inducted into the board of the company.

Also bulk drug industry is now mandated to improve quality of its emissions into the common effluent treatment plants and MTIL is setting up one of the largest effluent treatment plants in the country to meet current requirements on discharges.

Many new generation bulk drugs are to be produced in the first phase, including acyclovir, ciprofloxacin, fluconazole and ofloxacin.

The company has taken over assets including plant, machinery and building of a Hyderabad-based drug company and has converted this into a world-class R & D centre investing Rs 1.5 crore.

This unit is operated as a pilot plan to develop products and study of processes.