http://in.news.yahoo.com/ - Nov 20, 2007

Ahmedabad-based Marck Biosciences Ltd, engaged in manufacturing of parenterals for domestic and global pharmaceutical companies, forayed into Andhra Pradesh parenterals market. Marck Biosciences has initially launched a comprehensive range of quality products in Hyderabad and will roll out all its products across the state by 2007.

"We already have a strong presence in North and West India and had recently entered the Karnataka market. The launch in Andhra Pradesh is aimed at spearheading our plan to cross the target turnover of Rs 100 crore in 2007-08. We are focusing on a dual pronged strategy of domestic market expansion and leveraging the large contract research and manufacturing opportunity to grow exponentially in the coming year," Bhavesh Patel, MD, Marck Biosciences said in a release.

In Hyderabad, Marck is targeting revenue of Rs 3 crore by the end of 2007 and gain a market share of 25%. "We plan to tap both the retail and institutional market through a network of distributors along with a strong team of field staff. We hope to have over eight distributors to cover the market well," Patel said.

"We are investing Rs 72 crore at our existing manufacturing facility in Gujarat to increase the production capacity to 230 million units of SVP (small volume parenterals) and 61 million units of LVP (large volume parenterals),'' he said.

With this, the total investment in the Kheda facility would exceed Rs 125 crore. Marck's current production capacity is 65 million units for SVP and 61 million units for LVP. The company takes contract manufacturing of LVP and SVP for 48 of top 50 pharma companies which include companies like Dr Reddy's, Torrent, Cadila, Themis, Zydus, Shreya, Glenmak, Ranbaxy, Sun Pharma, FDC, Macleods, Intas and Lupin. Marck's international customer base includes several major international drug firms.