| Publication :
Business Standard
Provider :
Business Standard
July15, 2004
Avra Labs embarks on Rs 15cr expansion plan
K Balaram Reddy Hyderabad
M
City-based Avra Laboratories is embarking on a major expansion at a cost of
Rs 15 crore to take up research and development (R&D) on a large-scale. It
is setting up a R&D lab, a pilot manufacturing plant, a production facility
and has decided to ramp up its R&D team strength to 200 from the current
120.
The company has acquired the manufacturing facilities of Uniloids Limited, a
city-based sick pharmaceutical unit, for a consideration of Rs 1.6 crore
from the Andhra Pradesh State Finance Corporation (APSFC) recently.
Disclosing this to Business Standard, A V Rama Rao, chairman and managing
director of Avra Labs, said that the company is intending to venture into
product manufacturing by setting up exclusive manufacturing facilities for its clients.
The R&D laboratory and pilot plant facilities occupy a built-up area of
45,000 sq ft on the site of Uniloids. The facility would house 14 dedicated
research labs of 600 sqft each, class-100,00 clean room for kilo quantity
product manufacture (including APIs), pilot plant, quality control and
quality assurance infrastructure. The works will commence soon, he said.
The company already has a 50,000 sqft R&D lab at Nacharam on the city
outskirts. It was set up in 2000 at a cost of Rs 8 crore. The lab has since
been successful in producing molecules involving multi-step (up to 25 steps)
syntheses.
A recipient of 'Padmashree' in 1991 and a former director of the Indian
Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Rama Rao is one of the most
distinguished scientists in the field of organic chemistry in the country
with over 30 patents to his credit. He has developed more than 50 drug
technologies that have already been commercialised by the pharmaceutical
industry.
Rama Rao is the first to set up a contract research organisation in the
country in 1996 and Avra Labs clocked Rs 20 crore in revenues last year. It
caters to the process and product needs of pharmaceutical companies and provides high quality science-based technical services, process technologies
and synthesis of new chemical entities (NCEs). It also actively participates in drug discovery programmes for several foreign and domestic companies.
"Avra has gained international reputation as a centre of high quality
research in chemical synthesis and technologies of drugs, drug intermediates
or agro-chemicals. It is a preferred global partner for collaborative and
contractual R&D projects involving the best-known names in the industry like
Searle, Pfizer, Davos (USA), Cytomed, Leukocyte, National Cancer Institute,
Oxford Asymmetry, Cipla and Cadilla," he said.
In the last eight years, Avra has also developed expertise in documentation
for standard operating procedures, protocols, test method documentation,
limit specifications and qualifications for equipment, instruments,
validation profiles and recording systems as per the highest standards in
the world. All its practices comply with USFDA norms, he said.
Claiming that he was the first to prove that a scientist could turn a
successful entrepreneur, Rao enunciated Avra's motto that: "If there is a
molecule, it could be identified. If the molecule is identifiable, it can be
synthesised. There is always a possibility to further improve any existing
synthetic procedure." Avra has also become a preferred training ground for
scientists and chemical technologists seeking the challenges of innovation
and discovery. It has also approached Osmania University for commencing
doctoral programmes.
On the reasons for setting up a production facility, Rama Rao said was that
the company already possessed some molecules -- some anti-cancer drugs and
TB drugs which competitors do not make. For further growth in the area,
production support is very important. Hence the plans for expansion, he
explained.
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