Aptuit splurges $100m in India
India-based Laurus Labs to form a new joint venture - just a few
months after splurging a similar amount to expand its capabilities.
Aptuit said it will create a new company with Laurus called Aptuit Laurus. The newly created entity will combine Aptuit's offering in drug development with Laurus' R&D and manufacturing expertise, the companies said. Aptuit Laurus will be based in Hyderabad, India with additional facilities in Vishakhapatnam and Bangalore and will initially provide a wide range of services including early-stage drug discovery, lead optimisation, process development, safety and hazard assessment and formulation development. Aptuit Laurus will operate from Laurus' newly-established 160,000 sq. ft R&D facility in Hyderabad, and will also include its large-scale manufacturing plant, which is currently under construction in Pharma City, Vishakhapatnam. In addition it will bring into play Aptuit's existing Informatics Development and Support group in Bangalore. Aptuit said it plans to spread the investment over the next four years to build upon Aptuit Laurus' development, manufacturing and informatics capabilities. The large-scale manufacturing site currently being built will include a stand-alone process R&D and scale-up capability, as well as a dedicated pilot plant, and flexible manufacturing blocks capable of producing kilo to multi-tonne quantities in over 120 vessels, Aptuit said. The initial phase of the construction includes dedicated production blocks for cytotoxic and corticosteroid compound production and leaves ample space on the 34-acre parcel for significant future expansion. This phase is expected to be completed by 2008. The Indian contract research and manufacturing services (CRAMS) market is a buoyant one estimated to have generated $895m last year, and expected to reach $6.6bn by 2013, according to data from Frost & Sullivan, and it seems that Aptuit has decided to take advantage of the outsourcing opportunities in this market. "India has an exceptionally skilled workforce, competitive labor and material costs, a well-established infrastructure for local and international regulatory approvals and the largest number of FDA approved manufacturing plants outside the US," said Aptuit. "Aptuit believes a strong presence in Asia is critical to its mission of engineering a better drug development process. We believe it is a mistake to enter India and China primarily in search of operational savings. We have approached our expansion into India as a strategic priority which would go beyond this rationale in pursuit of high quality science and a leadership role in the large and quickly evolving pharmaceutical consumer markets in these two countries," said Mike Griffith, Aptuit CEO. This latest spree comes just four months after Aptuit announced it would invest $100m to expand its operations. The company said in February that the move, which was led by customers' demand, would enable it to expand capacity, improve operating efficiency, and further align its global operations. Aptuit's chief operating officer Scott Houlton told Outsourcing-Pharma.com back then that some of the investment would go to the building of new facilities and the renovation of existing plants, while some of the money would bring recently acquired facilities to higher capacity.
