Chennai-based Shasun Pharmaceuticals will invest Rs 200 crore this fiscal to scale up the production capacity at its manufacturing units in India and the UK. It will also set up a greenfield factory in Andhra Pradesh.
About 80 per cent of the investments will go towards raising capacity in active pharmaceuticals ingredients (API) and the rest in formulations. The company has bought 80 acres land near Nellore, where a manufacturing unit for its formulations business will come up by December 2014. Managing Director S. Abhaya Kumar said: “The production capacity will rise 80 per cent after the expansion.” He did not disclose the current capacity. The company runs two factories in Cuddalore and Pondicherry, where its API and formulations businesses are based. Another facility at Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City in Visakhapatnam, built at an investment of Rs 129 crore, is expected to commence production next fiscal.
On a conference call with investors and analysts on Tuesday, Abhaya Kumar said the capital expenditure follows an uptick in demand for its API and formulations businesses. The new list of essential medicines brought out by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy this year had only two of Shasun’s products, posing little challenge to its projected growth in domestic formulations business of 50 per cent this year and 30 per cent in FY15, he said.