The manufacturing facility at Vizag is in the Pharmacity Special Economic Zone and is spread over 50 acres with over 80 employees in the first phase. Over a period of time, the company would be looking at setting up an R&D centre in India or Singapore which would focusprimarily on neglected diseases such as malaria, HIV, TB, among others.
“We are looking at both combination of basic R&D and reverse engineering process. Besides, we will have a data management global centre for clinical research,’’ Kenji Toda, senior vice-president, government relations, also the chairman of International Affairs Committee of Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, told FE. The proposed research centre would focus on process research, combination of drug development, among otherd. “We are also in talks with some of the research institutes in India and working to develop drugs in a cost-effective manner,’’ Toda explained.
According to Toda, Vizag will be Eisai’s second global API supply site after the Kashima plant in Japan which supplies APIs to all countries. The facility will house drug substance and drug product manufacturing.“Production in Vizag will allow Eisai to offer affordable prices in developing nations and cope with changes in the business environment,’’ he said. In the process, the company aims to make the Vizag site supply the most cost-effective medicines to the world. Currently, the capacity for API production is 30 tonne which can be increased to 60 tonne per annum and drug production capacity increased two-fold from one billion to two billion per annum.
