Albert David to set up unit with R&D facility

The new facility, which would commence operations tentatively by 2002, would manufacture oral liquids, tablets, ointments and some bulk drugs. "The aim is to increase the present production and launch more and more new products every year and with a strong R&D team we hope to achieve it," Mundhra added.

In the post-TRIPs era Indian drug manufacturers are realigning their survival strategies. With more and more MNCs entering the domestic market and keeping the product patent regime ahead, domestic manufacturers are drawing up strategies for their sustainable growth and survival.

The decades old Kolkata-based Albert David Ltd., a leading and fast growing professionally managed pharmaceutical company is setting up a new manufacturing facility along with an advanced R&D facility as a part of its modernisation and upgradation plans.

The company is also in the final stages of negotiations with foreign pharma companies for licensing agreements.

K.P. Mundhra, executive director of Albert David Ltd. in an exclusive interview to Express Pharma Pulse said. "As more and more MNCs are entering the pharma market in India we cannot afford to sit idle. We need to upgrade our manufacturing facilities and have state-of-the-art technologies for production of quality products so that we can meet the challenges posed by the MNCs. So for these our R&D facility will also have to be strengthened."

The company will be finalising the exact location of the new factory to be set up in Kolkata within two months. The cost of the entire project has been pegged at Rs 40 crore. The investment will be in phases now and the project will be partly funded by the company's own earnings and partly by different FIs.

Albert David has multi-centric manufacturing plants located in Kolkata, Ghaziabad and Mandideep near Bhopal (MP). The manufacturing units of the company have been accorded WHOGMP accreditation. The bulk drug manufacturing facility has been approved by US FDA.

Albert David ranked 58^th out of 16,000 plus pharma companies is a part of the Kothari Group of companies.

"We manufacture and market a wide range of formulations, large volume parenterals and medical disposables. We would concentrate on the formulations market," Mundhra informed.