Recipharm Expands Indian Injectable Dosage Form Capabilities

Contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Recipharm will collaborate on a project together with long-term Indian partner, the Sobti family, aimed at creating production capacity in India for a range of sterile dosage forms, the company announced in a Nov. 6, 2019 press release.

The Sobti family’s newly created company, Nichepharm Lifesciences Pvt Ltd, will initially issue an 8% equity stake to Recipharm, which will invest INR 800 million (SEK 110 million, US$11.14 million). Recipharm will also have the option to acquire an additional 16% share in Nichepharm during 2021. Further, a new facility will be established in Dehradun, Uttarakhand in northern India and is expected to be fully operational by 2022. The new facility is expected to be approved by European and other international regulatory agencies, according to Recipharm.

“Three years after acquiring Nitin Lifesciences Ltd (“Nitin”) from the Sobti family, we have confirmed our initial views that the Indian-based operations offer high-level expertise and low-cost options for drug development and manufacturing. We have been impressed with Nitin’s strong financial performance on the domestic market as well as with export activities to emerging markets,” said Thomas Eldered, CEO of Recipharm, in a company press release. “This is the outcome of Nitin being well positioned at the high-quality end of this market segment, allowing it to saturate its production capacity with available demand. The excellent leadership of Dr. Chetan Sobti, as CEO, and Nitin Sobti, as COO, are also key factors in the company’s success.”

“We are seeing a strong demand from Europe and [United States] for various sterile formulation services which would otherwise potentially trigger material investments in our European facilities. There is also a growing demand from countries such as Russia and Latin America that Nitin cannot necessarily fulfill today. In short, there is a great opportunity to combine our capabilities and expertise in Europe and India to build a new facility dedicated to injectable formulations in order to supply demand from Europe and overseas territories,” Eldered added in the release.

The operations and ownership in Recipharm’s current Indian subsidiaries, Nitin Lifesciences Ltd and Recipharm Pharmaservices Pvt Ltd, will remain unchanged.

Source: Recipharm